Direct a game on film

[Frostmarrow]

This is pretty silly I must admit but unless I type it down I won't get the image out of my head.

You know how Hollywood always makes everything look cooler to the point it doesn't resemble reality anymore? Well, what I was thinking was how to film a role-playing session and make it look cooler than it does in reality. Even if it meant that we - the gamers - wouldn't recognize it.

The image of a bunch of bearded guys sit around in a small room surrounded by coke-cans, books and dice would not make it in to a feature film. Perhaps we would get to see it in a tv-series if it was the bad guys/ sidekicks being depicted or something. I don't know.

However, this is what I came up with:

First, the room is dark. All the players are slim and handsome perhaps taken directly from the West Wing-cast. They wear black overalls of the kind mimics use. Through the blackness you only can make out the visages and hands of the participants. There is no table. In fact there are no role-playing accoutrements at all, save a waist high lecturn with a few sheets of paper in front of the DM. Everybody is standing up in a semi-circle facing the DM. There are no interruptions and no off-topic jokes. Everybody takes themselves oh so seriously. When one player is "acting" the others remain silent in awe. When the DM speaks, soft music is played and the atmosphere is as serious as the storyteller-scene from movies. The DM, a woman, speaks with the voice of Cate Blanchett from the Lord of the Rings prologue.

*

 

[MonkeyBoy]

"First, the room is dark. All the players are slim and handsome perhaps taken directly from the West Wing-cast. They wear black overalls of the kind mimics use. Through the blackness you only can make out the visages and hands of the participants. There is no table. In fact there are no role-playing accoutrements at all, save a waist high lecturn with a few sheets of paper in front of the DM. Everybody is standing up in a semi-circle facing the DM. There are no interruptions and no off-topic jokes. Everybody takes themselves oh so seriously. When one player is "acting" the others remain silent in awe. When the DM speaks, soft music is played and the atmosphere is as serious as the storyteller-scene from movies. The DM, a woman, speaks with the voice of Cate Blanchett from the Lord of the Rings prologue."

You mean you want to film a game of Vampire?

Seriously, though, you might make it look "kewl", but that doesn't sound like it would look "fun".

Somehow, I think more in terms of the DM being Marlon Brando - from Apocalypse Now - meandering, and sponging themself down intermittantly

 

[I'm A Banana]

IMHO, film what's there.

Don't try to make it something it's not. It's a bunch of people sitting around rolling dice and drinkin' cola.

Where this could potentially shine is a few methods:

a) Camera in constant motion. Think how ER is filmed. The camera dwells on a player only long enough for them to deilver their lines, and then slides to another one, without a cut. Fantastic feeling of action, tension, and speed.

b) Witty, Kevin-Smith-esque dialogue. Gamers are intellectual, in general -- show that they're sarcastic, full of banter, with a wit and a will to use it. This has the added effect of making the players into sympathetic characters

c) Don't film the gamers -- film what's in their imagination.

Those are my brainstorms for it. YEah, I'm one of the many who has pondered doing things like this. >.<

 

[Orias]

I always thought it would be funny if a movie came out of an hour & a half of a long gaming session, & it started in the middle of the adventure so as no one, not even gamers, would really understand the plot to the story. And the whole thing was an argument between a rules lawyer & the DM, & there was a kid there who just started playing, so he had to look up the rules all the time, & wasted alot of time adding. That would be sweet.

 

[Drawmack]

[tounge in cheek]
No we can't film a gaming session and it's quite possibly the stupidest idea I've every heard.

You see if we film a gamming session then all of those right wing fuddie duddies out there will realize that role-playing games are only games. They are different then other games for the shere lack of a game winning object but they are just games. If those fuddie duddies realized that then they would stop running around trying to get kids not to play. If they stopped running around trying to get kids not to play then kids would stop hearing about the hobby from their parents. On top of that if it isn't baned by the parents then a lot less kids will be likely to pick it up. Then we'll have to go out and do our own pr for the hobby, which will seriously decrease playing time. So you see we cannot do anything to dispell the rpgs are evil myth and in fact should do everything we can to foster it. Yeah, tell your kids not to do something and you can bet that they will.
[/tounge in cheek]

 

[Tewligan]

b) Witty, Kevin-Smith-esque dialogue. Gamers are intellectual, in general -- show that they're sarcastic, full of banter, with a wit and a will to use it. This has the added effect of making the players into sympathetic characters

And, if this came out on DVD, you could have a feature where the viewer could skip directly to all of the Simpsons and Monty Python quotes over the course of the game. Hmm - actually, that would probably have to be on a separate disc.

 

[jalea]

Try watching the Bag Witdh Project from Toxic Bag Productions. It's not quite a gaming session but it's close and It's funny

 

[Kibo]

IMHO, film what's there.

Don't try to make it something it's not. It's a bunch of people sitting around rolling dice and drinkin' cola.

b) Witty, Kevin-Smith-esque dialogue. Gamers are intellectual, in general -- show that they're sarcastic, full of banter, with a wit and a will to use it. This has the added effect of making the players into sympathetic characters

Funny, I was thinking something similar but opposite. Along the lines of something like Kevin Smith makes Casio. Gratuitious slow motion, close ups on dice, enhaced sound and a heavy slow thump when a twenty comes up. Maybe vivid scenes depicting what each gamers imagine, and have each person be representative of some gamer archtype. The Begnin DM sees Lord of The Rings, The Power Gamer sees something like a Fantasy Matrix the visualized code being D&D math, The Weirdo who sees all the completely bizzar and inexplicable conclusions he jumped to, The Letch copping feels off NPCs, The Dumbass who pictures himself as a badass Steven Segal with a bastard sword not realizing Segal is just bad and an ass, and, my favorite, The Psycho, he'd rather be evil than stupid, but strangely settles for both. There are surely more.

The movie would be centered around the game table, room whatever, you could fade into the fantasy scenes from the ooc color comentary and the Dm's descriptions might occasionally take the form of a voice over, as might certain characters internal monologues, the audiance sees the action through a perspective focusing on the character doing the acting always coming back to the room via the ooc color comentary.

Given some of the games I've played in, I think this could be a hillarious movie, and possibly spawn sequels, and at least Kai Lord's story hour gives me reason to believe I'm not alone in this.