Fine Lines That Grow Into Gaping Separations - Joe Chan

Although the line between video games and movies are becoming harder to distinguish as explained in my previous post, video games have also been developing more of its own identity as a medium. This separation actually spawns from the fact that video games are so similar to movies in terms of genre, technique, style, etc. These similarities as well as video games as an art form possessing the ability to maintain its own unique form of telling a narrative helps the art develop as a separate entity from movies.

            In my previous posts I discussed how many video games derive from movies the same style of evoking emotions such as lighting and camera use as seen in articles such as this http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/elnasr_niedenthal_knez_almeida_zupko. I then discussed how the separations between the two mediums have gotten even more blurred due to the recent technological developments of which allow for better animation in both video games and movies as well as the ability to implement full performance capturing of an actor and placing it into movies and video games. This can be seen in examples such as articles featuring Andy Serkis (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/nov/08/andy-serkis-enslaved-interview) who is a very famous actor that has much experience in the art of performance capture, acting in both movies and video games. Performance capture is now on the forefront of both video games and movies, such huge developments such as the movie Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8jQDykEr2Y and the video game L.A Noire rely on the ability to really capture an actor’s performance in terms of body language, facial gestures, voice acting and so on, in order to really place an importance on the actor’s abilities to share the emotion that the narrative wants to convey.

                The reason why I argue that video games form its own medium of art now is not that it makes its own genres through imitating movies but that it provides narrative of similar genres in a new way (through the form of interactivity) in order to help the audience become more attached to the story and characters. This imitation of stories and remaking/retelling of tales can be seen in the transition from books to film, movies are a separate medium from books yet they share common genres, themes , stories and they parody each other as well (movies made into books and vice versa). This can be seen in the same way as how video games interact with movies. Video games and movies discuss the same genres and convey the same stories and themes as one another and each take the opportunity to parody each other as well. Video games are made into movies and movies often made into video games, each adapting the universes of one another and sometimes forming completely new worlds and stories rooted in the universes already crafted in their separate mediums.  As Jonathan Blow states, video games are a new form of art that need a little more development and, will in time, change the way the world perceives things the same way film had change the world from the auditory world of the radio to the visual world of television and movies. This separation of mediums that are rooted in similar purposes and styles is nothing new, the lines between the arts become harder to see with each innovation but the more similar they become the further and more independent each form of art evolves into at the same time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0kup_anLeU