Doctor Who: Adventure Games - BAF 2010 Part 2

BAF welcomed back legendary games developer Charles Cecil (last seen at the Museum acting as an official invigilator when we beat the World Record for simultaneous Nintendo DS gaming) alongside Sean Millard from Sumo Digital and Anwen Aspden, BBC Executive Producer - all here to talk about their involvement on the Doctor Who: Adventure Games series.

So why did they do it? The BBC had planned on producing four interactive episodes for the latest reincarnation of the series, but went one step further and created something special with free downloadable games - over 1.6 million downloads so far, and more episodes to come.

The pitch went out all over the world, but landed in Sumo's lap. Charles had worked successfully with the Sheffield based company before (Broken Sword) but it was their grasp of the brand and production values in only two scenes of their pitch video which sealed the deal.

The Doctor - with sonic screwdriver acting as a skeleton key allowing him to go virtually anywhere, and his tendency to negotiate rather than fight, is an unlikely game hero, but Sumo overcame these issues by using avoidance, discovery and infiltration. The developers also need to ensure that they didn't assume gaming knowledge nor make the game too complex for Doctor Who's expansive audience range.

Sean is obviously thrilled that he was given the opportunity to create a Doctor Who character - the Cyberslaves - which could potentially appear in a televised episode; he claims it's the coolest thing he's done during his 20 year career. Charles went through the process of creating the cyberslaves under the protective guidance of the Beeb, and concluded that it is the human behind the monster which is most frightening.

The actors movements (Matt Smith and Karen Gillan) were shot using rotoscope rather than motion capture, which enabled Sumo to animate the characters in game. The resulting facial textures were too realistic and the BBC felt that it was "too dark", so removing the texture and smoothing out any lines was the computer equivalent of putting the actors into make up. An interesting analogy.

"The second coolest thing" for Sean is seeing his company's game advertised during primetime - this level of publicity is generally a rap on the knuckles for disrupting the nation's youth.

Charles revealed that his experiences working with the BBC on the Doctor Who Adventure Games are "a lesson in how to market": Keep it a secret, then blitz it and surprise everybody.

During the Q&A we learned that the funding for the game came from public service money, but it created such a buzz at Comic-con that there are plans in place to sell it abroad.

The audience expressed a desire to see some of the Doctor's previous incarnations crop up in the game, and the team, as passionate as they are about the brand and their product, clearly hope so too. And so the celebrated heritage of the Doctor continues.

Brink: Splash Damage - BAF 2010 Part 1

Bradford Animation Festival is here once again. Day one of the biggest annual event at the Museum, indeed the biggest animation festival in the UK, and the crowds alreading gathering in the foyer and Pictureville show signs of this being yet another successful year.

BAF's audience is always a joy to see - a devoted bunch of enthusiasts, industry professionals, industry hopefuls and students just starting out on the road to a hopefully brilliant career. Enough of the scene setting... on with the show.

The first session of the day was an exclusive with Tim Appleby and Lauren Austin from Splash Damage who talked about the concept art and character design behind one of the 'most queued-for' games at this year's Eurogamer Expo: Brink.

A round of applause followed the cinematic trailer - there is a definite buzz surrounding this game. The pair took us through the story, the style of the two main factions, how they developed those styles, and then on body types, character customisation, overlays and tints. Everything from initial concepts to facial hair.

One thing which does stand out about Brink is that there is not one recognisable character - but about twenty of them, each with their own name and identity - a useful tip for game character designers.

"Customisation doesn't lend itself to quality", but Splash Damage wanted to focus on the quality, and in doing so discovered that "limitation spurs invention". Now, I couldn't go into too much technical detail* - partly because you might not understand it, mostly because I certainly don't, but it does make a lot of sense.

For example - all heads need to be the same width to ensure the head gear can be used for all characters, so instead they played about with length.

Lauren clearly had a lot of fun developing these characters, sometimes taking her inspiration from celebrity mashups (Danny Trejo vs Jason Statham, anyone? Sounds post-apocalyptic to me!)

And in a sea of post-apocalyptic first person shooters, this game stands out. Not only is it colourful, but it has a whole range of characters and customisation options which helps with player investment and gives Brink an instantly recognisable look.

So, here's Splash Damage's three golden nuggets:

1. Start simple and protoype early.
2. Make sure there is close collaboration as you develop your characters.
3. Designs need to reflect technical limitations.

*If you want to hear the finer technical detail, look out for all the podcasts from BAF 2010 which will appear on the new National Media Museum website in the very near future.

Aamir Khan Talks Indian Cinema & his Career

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan ("the Indian Tom Cruise", I heard from one of my colleagues) was in our midst last week. He sat in conversation with Dr. Rajinder Dudrah, Hindi Cinema expert from the University of Manchester. Fans flocked to the Museum to meet their hero, and filled our Pictureville auditorium to hear his words.

I'm sorry to say I missed the event, but I asked my favourite guest blogger - Tom Vincent, Film programmer here at the Museum, to fill you in:

Wednesday evening was a huge amount of fun. A short delay built up the anticipation, and at just after 8pm, Mr. Aamir Khan appeared on Pictureville stairs to rousing applause, cheers, even screams from younger fans. Aamir is a true star; a thoughtful, honest and generous guy with much to say about Indian cinema.

During an hour's conversation, Dr. Rajinder Dudrah did a sterling job of gathering Aamir's thoughts on Indian film past and present, his own industry beginnings, and Hollywood's interest in the Mumbai industry. Wednesday was very much a fans' event, and Rajinder gave a sizable part of the interview over to moderating questions from an audience made up of all generations.

At certain points it seemed that almost everyone had their hand up, and Aamir got through quite a range of topics, from Method acting, to his thoughts on potential collaborations and future possibilities for Indian film.

At 9pm, with several questions still waiting to be asked, Aamir himself requested that we extend the conversation a little to consider a few more – a really generous touch. Then, after a final few minutes on Peepli [Live], Aamir's new film as producer, and with some regrets from the man himself, Aamir was away into the night, with a few keen fans at the front treated to a final goodbye handshake.

Aamir and Rajinder could likely have continued talking for longer, had time allowed, but for me the best thing about the event was that so many people got to speak with Mr. Khan. I think this made everyone's night. This morning I caught up with Rajinder to gather his own impressions:

"Mr. Aamir Khan was a real gentleman. He listened to all the questions carefully and responded to the audience's Q&A in detail and with sincerity. The Bradford fans were especially pleased when upon Aamir's own request we extended the Q&A by an extra 10+ minutes. An exciting and memorable evening was had by all and gauging by the enthusiastic reaction, Peepli [Live] was a success too".

A great big thank you to everyone who came, and who helped make it so enjoyable.

Peepli [Live] will be showing at the National Media Museum from Sunday 10 October 2010.

If you missed it, the podcast is now available to download from our podcasts page.

Were you there? What did you think of the evening, and the man himself?

Simon Roberts: We English Exhibition on Tour

Our temporary exhibition galleries are now closed while we prepare for two brand new exhibitions to open on 15 October.
Robbie Cooper's Immersion will be replaced by Land: Revisited, to mark the 25th anniversary of Fay Godwin's Land, a celebration of the British landscape.
Simon Roberts' We English will be replaced by From Back Home, a body of work by contemporary Swedish photographers Anders Petersen and JH Engström, which became an award-winning book and is being exhibited in this country for the first time in our Gallery One space.
If you enjoyed We English, you'll have another opportunity to view the work when it tours to Croyden Clock Tower - not the only National Media Museum exhibition to go on tour...
Ruth Haycock, our Senior Exhibitions and Partnerships Organiser, has developed a Touring Exhibitions strand whose aim is to increase public access to our Collections both here and abroad, develop cultural partnerships, boost the profile of the Museum and champion our world-class Collections.
We English and three other exhibitions taken from our photography Collections are available to tour: Lives of the Great Photographers, The British Landscape and The Art of Arrangement: Still Life and the Photographic Tradition.
Our exhibition and design teams will create a graphics and identity package for the exhibition, and while we provide core pieces, the host venue may extend and compliment the exhibition with work from their own collections to make it their own - we can work with the host venue to develop layered interpretations to meet their requirements and the needs of their audiences.
If you're interested in hosting a National Media Museum exhibition, or would like to find out more about our Touring Exhibitions programme, talk to Ruth Haycock:
Tel: 01274 203 343
Email: ruth.haycock@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk.

Film and Events Highlights for August-September

We've some unmissable screenings and events coming your way in our August - September film programme.

To coincide with the release of Tamara Drewe, we will be welcoming her creator, Posy Simmonds, on Tuesday 28 September. Posy will be sitting in conversation with comics expert, Paul Gravett. A must for any comic strip fans.

If you love animation, you'll be delighted with The Illusionist, based on a script by Jacques Tati, and directed by Sylvain Chromet of Belleville Rendezvous fame. I asked our Film Programmer, Tom Vincent, to tell me his highlights for the month - and here's his expert opinion:

"The Illusionist is one of the loveliest films you'll see all year. An animated tale of an outmoded French entertainer in the Scotland of 1959, the film reminds us of one of the most enduring pleasures of cinema, of entertaining without words (and those who remember the same director's 2002 film Belleville Rendezvous will know what to expect). There aren't many films around currently that have the confidence to use image and sound so effectively in their storytelling, and it's always a refreshing delight to be enthralled in this way. The film opened this June's Edinburgh International Film Festival, with the Festival organisers laying on street performance outside the theatre that recreated characters, magicians and trapeze artists, from the film, which conjured up the pleasures of a bygone age.

"At an interview event in which he explained the process of making the film, director Sylvain Chomet spoke about his love for, and artistic debt to, Jacques Tati. It's Tati's unfilmed script from which the film was developed, and his influence is all over both of Chomet's features to date. The illusionist of the title was modelled on Monsieur Hulot, Tati's most famous creation, the script was written, poignantly, for Tati's own daughter, and in one glorious episode Chomet's character comes face to face with the ever-polite, ever-bumbling, celluloid Hulot in an Edinburgh cinema. In offering pleasures alternative to 99% of all new cinema, The Illusionist seems like an affirmation of the past, nostalgia made relevant.

"The Illusionist is also made with precisely the same comedic DNA as Tati's films. Tati's humour was pretty unusual (ITV's Mr. Bean offered an anaemic version of it); absurd visual gags were set up and left hanging, the humour coming not from punch lines but from the delicious situations themselves. An incident from Tati's schooling planted a seed for all this: In Tati's English class an enthusiastic teacher would encourage students to act out commands while repeating target phrases, in this case "I open the door, I close the door". Spotting the chance to make the class laugh, Tati volunteered, wandered over to the door, opened it ("I open the door"), stepped through and, ("I close the door") shut it behind him. Outside the classroom Tati wondered for a moment which would be funnier; to go back in and meet his peers' applause, or to hide in the toilets until the end of the class. In the end he simply snuck out of school entirely and spent the rest of the day at home, leaving his improvised joke hanging absurdly forever."

Speaking of animation, Bradford Animation Festival 2010 is upon us - find out more by visiting www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/baf/.

To celebrate the centenary of his birth, we bring you a season of Akira Kurosawa films, which begins with the epic Seven Samurai on Friday 20 August. See for yourself why he is known around the world as a master of his art.

And if that wasn't enough, Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan will be in our midst, we look at the career of Sean Connery as the Scottish superstar turns 80, and Stephen Fry will appear live via satellite broadcast in The Fry Chronices.

Phew - it's going to be a busy month!

Find out more by visiting www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/filmandimax or downloading our new Film Guide (PDF 2.4MB).

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