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In the West, role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII is a multi-platform game, getting a release on
the Xbox 360 and the PS3. While the PS3 version might look better, individuals are claiming that
there are freezing issues. More
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Vous l'avez sans doute constaté depuis quelques jours, Motomu Toriyama - créateur de
Final Fantasy XIII - s'est montré particulièrement loquace lors de la GDC.
Après l'absence des villes dans son der...
Bethesda Software a annoncé par voie de communiqué de presse le développement
de Hunted : The Demon's Forge, jeu d'action à la troisième personne baignant dans un
univers heroïc fantasy et...
Congratulations to Square Enix as they have hit top spot in the UK charts with Final Fantasy XIII.
Elsewhere the remainder of the top five is as follows: Bad Company 2, Just Dance, Heavy Rain and
Wii Fit Plus.
Why are modern video games still having problems with voice acting? And what can be done to solve
them? Gamesblog investigates...
Most admirers of Quantic Dreams' interactive drama Heavy
Rain will readily agree on the game's most glaring fault – the
inconsistent voice acting. The visuals are astonishingly atmospheric, the plot (though choppy at
times) is compelling, and the lush orchestral score is wonderfully resonant... But... Well, some
of the acting performances are wooden to the point of somnambulism.
The thing is, Heavy Rain is far from alone. Although the videogame industry loves to compare
itself with the movie business, and clearly has ambitions to become the story-telling medium of
the 21st century, poor vocal performances are common, even among Triple A titles. In the last few
months Aliens vs Predator, Army of Two: 40th Day and even Final Fantasy XIII have drawn criticism
in the areas of scripting and performance. So what's going on?
"Although improving all the time, there is still a lack of focus on story and character in
games," says Andy Emery creative director at Side, a leading
provider of casting, directing and recording services to the videogame and movie sectors. "This
has to be an integral part of the project from start to finish. We see problems with poor scripts
all the time. A professional scriptwriter is an essential part of modern game development but
still we get 'developer written' scripts with alarming regularity. Even with the best Hollywood
actors on board, a poor script can result in poor voice acting."
A sometimes mediocre script certainly contributes to the problems in Heavy Rain, where key
snippets of dialogue are so laboured and cliché-ridden, they more or less eject you
straight out of the experience. But then, actors work with dodgy scripts all the time, and can
still put together a reasonably compelling performance (just ask anyone who's appeared in a
romantic comedy in the last decade). Experienced direction helps, too.
Clearly, there are deeper problems, involving the whole process of recording voice performances.
And it starts with timetabling.
Traditionally, voice acting has been recorded toward the end of the cycle, when the over-arching
structure of the game and its narrative are safely locked down. There are compelling reasons for
this. Games tend to evolve enormously over the standard two-year process, with whole missions
often culled at a late stage, as playtesting reveals unforeseen fault lines and design issues.
Having to recall actors and record chunks of new dialogue to reflect story changes is perceived
as an expensive, time-consuming chore – the last thing a hassled studio needs
in the generally hellish run up to a major delivery deadline.
But while those justifications made sense in the old days, when voice performances tended to be
restricted to skippable cut-scenes there for decoration only, they begin to look less convincing
in the modern era. With titles like Heavy Rain and the forthcoming psychological thriller Alan
Wake, where cinematic fidelity is a cornerstone of the experience, voice recording can't just be
something jammed in at the end ostensibly to cut costs. But more on that later.
There are also fundamental differences between voice acting in a videogame and voice acting in
linear artforms such as radio plays and animated movies. Due to the interactive nature of games,
actors can't be given a standard film script from which they're able to gauge the throughline of
their character and a feel for the dramatic development of the narrative. Instead, lines of
dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed and triggered within the game in
line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the performer will usually be
presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of dialogue, with little sense
of context or interaction.
As Emery argues, there's really not a lot of alternative. "For large complex RPG and MMO games,
with dialogue that could add up to over 30hrs of play time, it's simply not practical to give the
actors the whole script. You also risk information overload, with the actor struggling to focus
on the areas of importance for their character. Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new MMO being
developed by Bioware is a great example, as the project contains over 40 novels worth of scripted
dialogue. The key is to give the actors the information they need for their scenes and ensure
they are well directed by a professional and well-briefed director."
But according to David Sobolov, one of the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world
(just check out his website), the significant time
pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. "Often, there's a need to
record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've established the tone of
the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using the spreadsheet on the
screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked what we did. Or
they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take..." It sounds, in
effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanising production line of
disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly condusive to Oscar-winning performances.
Yet the establishment of a fully-rounded character is a vital element of the acting process. Most
western drama schools conform to the model of acting developed by Russian Theatre practitioner
Constantin Stanislavsy. His works on the development of character - An Actor Prepares, Building a
Character and Creating a Role - remain essential reference texts, even though his methods have
been superseded and remixed by dozens of acting luminaries ever since – most
notably perhaps, Lee Strasberg, at The Actors Studio. Stanislavski placed enormous emphasis on
the ability of the actor to understand and inhabit the character's life, not just the two hours
of it presented on screen or stage, but everything that took place beforehand. This takes time
and imagination – elements seemingly absent from the factory-line schedules of
many recording sessions.
It's clear, however, that some studios have grasped this vital element. "The actors always have
the opportunity to learn about the character before the session," says Emery of the work
undertaken at Side. "For most leading roles the actor would have had a full audition, with a
director present to brief them about the character and their motivations. Prior to a session they
are sent their script and character bios, and where possible, an overview of the general story
arc. This allows them to better understand the character they are to play and how they should be
played."
But then there's an added inhibitive element in the videogame voice recording session
– actors usually perform in isolation. This is, of course, a necessary evil as
in-game dialogue will need to be chopped up, mixed and played in a variety of contexts. But this
isn't much consolation to the actor. "I've only worked on one game where that wasn't the case,"
says Sobolov. "When I played The Arbiter in Halo Wars, they recorded cut scene dialogue with all
the principal performers in the same room together much as they do in television animation. Most
times we have to silently skip over the other character's lines (if they're shown to us at all)
then deliver our dialogue as if we were having a conversation in real time." Again, this runs
counter to drama training where the art of reacting to other performers is an intrinsic element.
Little wonder, then, that without a full script, a character chronology to study or other
performers to interact with, voice acting can be both stilted and lacking in nuance. It's an
intrinsic problem that the key voice over studios are really looking in to. Mark Estdale,
director at casting and voice recording agency, Outsource
Media, has been working for ten years on a system to provide voice over actors with a
quick-n-dirty frame of reference for their characterisations.
"What the actor needs is something at the point of performance that they can react to," he
explains. "To provide that, you need to throw away all previous script models. What we've done is
build a database that can actually emulate game engine behaviours and recalls for the actor any
kind of pertinent information - visuals from the game, audio, other actors' lines
– and it's all instant recall. So you get the actor in the studio and when
they're in the zone you hit them with this radical system – it's all on screen
in front of them, and they're getting all the cues they'd get in the theatre or on a film
production, they're not reliant on trying to figure out what the heck's going on."
Added to this, there's a very simple way to improve the quality of acting in most videogames:
start early. "To achieve a cinematic level of quality that so many titles demand now, the voice
acting can't be left to the end of the development cycle," maintains Emery. "Making character
performances an integral part of the pre- and main production stages opens up a whole range of
opportunities to improve the final quality." Mark Estdale wholeheartedly concurs. "Actors need to
be cast when the developer is starting the design process. I'm working on one production now
where we're there really early in development, and the whole cast is involved - they're giving
voices to the characters as they're being designed."
Not only does this create a sense of ownership of the character, it also means that the director,
writer, cast and game designers get to spark off each other – schlocky lumps
of leaden dialogue, implausible character volte-faces and rampant cliché may all be
avoided in a truly collaborative and respectful environment. In some ways, what developers need
to do it stop drawing all their cinematic reference points from the big CGI-stuffed blockbusters
and start looking at the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh who employ improvisation and
collaboration to build drama.
Ultimately, Emery pinpoints an evolving role within the game development process; instead of
script writers, what is needed now are 'narrative designers', experts in the creation of plot and
dialogue for an interactive medium. "Good narrative designers can work with game designers to
ensure the story and dialogue becomes a fully integrated element of the game design, rather than
a hindrance to pure interactivity. A lot of game players do not like to be stopped while a cut
scene delivers story elements and clever Narrative design can ensure the story is delivered in a
less obtrusive way.
"As narrative designers become more adept at delivering a compelling story in ways less obtrusive
to game play, the distinction between 'Story' dialogue and 'World Filling' dialogue will continue
to blur. The challenge will be to ensure ALL acting in games is believable, from in-game
greetings, to death cries, to the epic monologue."
And Emery also highlights other vital elements of convincing non-linear narrative. "Good audio
implementation ensures that individual files, separated for reasons of interactivity, can sound
like fluid, natural, overlapping dialogue once triggered in the game. Using a professional
director who is involved in casting, rehearsal and dialogue recordings makes a huge difference.
It's essential to have someone who knows the project inside out, has been on board from the
start, can talk to actors in their language and translate that into a performance."
The ultimate solution for Emery, however, is the emerging field of full performance capture, in
which one actor provides motion and facial capture, as well as the voice. "For full performance
capture sessions, it is more like a film shoot with script table reads, rehearsals and further
familiarisation with the project all prior to an actual shoot," he says. "On the actual shoot the
director will rehearse each scene with the actors together so they can get a feel of what will be
going on in each scene and how they will interact and then have multiple live takes to get the
required performance.
"On Dead Space: Extraction it was clear from the outset that the team was taking character
performances in the game very seriously. They looked for actors to provide not only a vocal and
facial performance but also facial likeness to be used in the game. Although the actors needed to
have the right voice and the right look, the team were happy to be flexible about accent. The
most important thing was to cast a group of distinct, believable characters and I think we really
hit the mark, and the gaming press agreed with us."
The weird thing is, this is exactly the avenue Quantic Dream chose. Of the four principle
characters in Heavy Rain, three were played by actors who provided the voice, motion and
facial capture data.
According to Madison Paige's body actor, Jacqui Ainsley, all the actors were given full
scripts, and they spent three years on the project – ample time to inhabit
their roles. Throughout the process, the game's creator and writer David Cage also provided
oodles of background detail regarding the moral choices at the heart of the drama. They did
everything right.
And certainly there are moments of profundity in the game, moments when the dialogue and
performances click into place with spinetingling effect. It could be that the actors were
inexperienced in games, that the audio implementation, with so many branching dialogue elements
to cope with, could not always call up exactly the right vocal intonations for the moment.
Perhaps it is down to the ambition of the project, the fact that it has effectively created its
own genre, that a few inherent weaknesses are cruelly magnified. The sheer size of the script
(apparently 16 movies worth of text) may have contributed, though this scale is becoming more
common these days. According to a preview of Rockstar's forthcoming adventure, LA Noire, in this month's Edge, the script weighs in
at 22,000 pages. Yet still, the interactive drama, a genre at the forefront of narrative
development, is in its infancy.
Most titles, however, sit in well-defined game types, developed by experienced studios. For them,
there is no excuse anymore. David Sobolov is predictably passionate on the subject. "We're moving
into a time where games are attempting to create an emotional experience rather than simply a
visceral one. If developers intend to tell more complex stories they're going to need to hire the
best talent they can find to complete that journey.
"A game can't be successful anymore if it's developed as a piece of software. It has to evoke
emotional reactions and create a reality a gamer wants to buy into to be successful. In the best
titles, good voice acting can be the glue that keeps a gamer immersed in the world that the
developer is creating, often subconsciously. The human voice is the one thing in a game that's
100% real..."
Here's the latest version of wololo's awesome hcustomizable fantasy card game for the PlayStation
Portable, Wagic! The latest update of the brew has added some new features, more cards, a few fixes
and various other improvements. Â Â Download:
Ten years ago, Final Fantasy VII upped the ante on realistic portrayals of their human characters
in their cinematics. It’s a good thing, too –those cinematics became a terrific
reward for the hours spent acquiring EXP and levelling up to make one’s characters
fortuitous enough to withstand the battles they laid in wait behind.
It wasn’t long before the other companies started to ‘level up’ their own
cinematics, and less time still before gamers started to crave that sense of realism in the
actual gameplay. To that end, NVIDIA (video above) has been working on real-time rendering
— literally down to the last hair they can manage.
According to their demo
at the GDC, they are now capable of, in-game, rendering up to 18,000 individual strands of
hair at a time, completely interactive with light, wind, and, apparently, conditioning —
just look at that bounce and shine!
Given that the average human head of hair has 100,000 strands, NVIDIA hasn’t hit Caprica
levels of in-game realism yet — but for today’s technology, we figure we can settle
for this remarkable leap forward.
Tsutomu Nihei's Biomega is a bleak, nihilistic vision of the future that is also
surprisingly entertaining.
In the first pages of the book, a man on a motorcycle enters a town populated by people who've
been zombified by a disease simply known as "N5S," which is currently ravaging the
planet. He's looking for a young woman whose biology may be the key to modifying the
disease and fighting off virtual human extinction . The subsequent pages follow him
as he battles not only zombies, but sentient bears as well (yes, you read that right) in his
quest to recover the girl and to stop a shadowy organization's conspiracy to spread the disease
to every part of the earth.
Unlike a lot of science-fiction or fantasy manga, there is no sense that Nihei is spending much
time world-building, so much as the brutal world that the protagonist encounters just
exists. The art is the real star of the book and it often feels as though
we are perched right inside the main character's brain, making it incredibly easy to follow the
action. David Welsh aptly compared the book to a first person shooter video game in
his excellent review,
noting "With its fast pace and progressively escalating stakes, Biomega actually does a
better job capturing the experience of playing a video game than comics that are actually
adaptations of existing franchises."Â Not being a fan of first person shooter games,
I found the experience quite novel in comic book form. It made the book easy to
digest, but also a strangely light, airless reading experience in spite of the heavy subject
matter (human body parts fly quite a bit in parts of the book). While there is next
to no character development, there is a strong sense of real space and time, as the strange
motorcyclist proceeds to fight his way from one fantastically realized humanity-deprived
environment to the next.
Oddly, I found reading the book enjoyable but am not entirely sure if I liked the
comic. Post-apocalyptic manga may be a well-worn genre but there is certainly enough
weirdness here (once again, the talking bear, who is wielding a rifle, is incredibly memorable)
to distinguish this title from other artists' attempts to destroy the earth as we know
it. What may set Nihei's vision apart is his ability to tear apart the fabric of
human existence so stylishly.
Sortie : 9 mars 2010 Final Fantasy XIII fait partie des trois jeux du groupe andquot;Fabula Nova
Crystallisandquot; ou andquot;Le Nouveau Conte du Cristalandquot; en français.
Land#039;histoire de ce treizième volet de la saga de Square Enix se déroule dans une
société isolée dans un immense vaisseau volant dans le ciel,
andquot;Cocoonandquot;. Celui-ci, créé par le Cristal et protégé par
dand#039;énormes machines, prospéra pendant longtemps. Mais ces habitants se mirent
à craindre le monde extérieur, le andquot;Pulseandquot;. Dès lors, ils
commencèrent à exiler tous ceux qui en provenaient. Et bientôt, la
méfiance des habitants de Cocoon se transforma en haine. Et cand#039;est dans cette
atmosphère tendue que le joueur dirige Lightning, land#039;héroïne du jeu. Une
guerrière puissante au passé mystérieux. Un titre qui ne sortira que bien plus
tard en Europe et aux USA quand#039;en Asie.
The jury may
still be out on whether or not
the world has gone ga-ga for Aussie actor Sam Worthington, but that
hasn't stopped the rumor mill from attaching his name to every action/fantasy/sci-fi franchise
around. The latest property to bear the Worthington connection -- according
to Pajiba -- will be the big-screen adaptation of the UK comic book hero Dan Dare, with Worthington in the lead, of
course. Dare was created by Frank Hampson, and was known for complex stories and stunning
artwork. It had popped in and out of English pop culture over the years as a radio show, and also
as a television series (that, for the most part, didn't go beyond the planning
stages).
In 2008, interest in Dare resurfaced thanks to a Nickelodeon UK animated series, and a limited
comic book run by Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine for Virgin Comics (who also owned the rights at the
time for Dare). When Virgin Comics dissolved, Dynamite Entertainment picked up the rights, and
sources are claiming that Warner Brothers is fast-tracking the project to find a writer and
director for the sci-fi story.
The latest attempt to bring Dare to the big screen started
in 2007, but the wait could be over. According to Pajiba, it's full-steam ahead for the tale of
England's answer to Buck Rogers. The name Dan Dare is relatively unknown on this side of
the pond, but even if you aren't familiar with the original comics, you'll have to agree that just
going on looks, Worthington isn't a bad choice for the dashing Colonel.
Worthington has already signed to star and produce
another comic book adaptation, Last Days of
American Crime, and judging by the rumors alone, he's going to be pretty busy for the
foreseeable future. So I guess whether you like him or not, we all better get used to having him
around.
Motomu Toriyama, le créateur de Final Fantasy XIII s'est jusqu'à maintenant assez peu
exprimé sur la trilogie Fabula Nova Crystallis, qui comprend FF XIII, Final Fantasy versus
XIII et Final Fantasy ...
[In a GameSetWatch-exclusive set of blog posts covering the week of GDC 2010, Magical
Wasteland blogger and Game Developer magazine columnist Matthew Burns continues his journey
through the show. Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and
Part
4.]
I’m speaking to Baiyon, the composer and graphic designer on PixelJunk Eden. He
talks about how different the show is from CEDEC, Japan’s counterpart to GDC.
“I like CEDEC, but I feel like they are a little too serious, thinking too much. Here, I
did a talk with Richard Lemarchand, Lead Designer on Uncharted 2, and there I answered a
question on how to get ideas for games by saying my method is that I go on a date with a girl,
have some drinks at a bar, and then spend some private time together, and the next morning
I’ve decided what to do."
"That was a kind of joke, but many people were talking and tweeting about it. I also played a set
at GAMMA IV. It was so fun,” he says. “I love the GDC people– the
whole thing is like a party.”
We also talk about what it’s like to work with Dylan Cuthbert, and he describes some
details of his approach to his next collaboration with Q-Games– a music
visualizer called PixelJunk lifelike.
We end our lunch conversation with a story about something Keita Takahashi, of Katamari
Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, created in college: a goat-shaped planter where excess
water comes out of the goat’s rear end. I’m not sure if learning this contributes to
my understanding of his work at all, but I’m inexplicably pleased to hear the anecdote
anyway.
The press room is something of a refuge from the loudness of the show, but there is very little
relaxing taking place there. Game journalists rush in from the talks, set up their laptops and
spend fifteen or twenty minutes filing their stories; they all know each other from before and
have clipped conversations with each other about the topics of the day while they work.
These include how Zynga was received at the Game Developer’s Choice awards last night, the
Final Fantasy XIII talk in which screenshots of Hitman and Tomb Raider
were used in a slide to represent “Western RPGs”. Robert “Bob of Bob’s
Game” Pelloni and Tim Rogers stop by in the room and enliven the place with their antics
while the other writers mostly ignore them.
I meet up with Steve Gaynor, designer at 2K Marin, congratulating him on BioShock 2 and
discussing the feel of its story in comparison to the first game. He has a lot of opinions on
where it succeeded and where it failed, which I very much enjoyed hearing; I tell him developers
that are their own worst critics are the best kind.
We also discuss the difficulties inherent to being part of a new team assembled to make a sequel
to an established studio’s successful title. Unlike some people I know from some similar
situations, however, Steve says he’s happy with where he is right now and is looking
forward to the studio’s next project.
At dinner that evening, Michael Abbott, of The Brainy Gamer blog and podcast and a theater
professor at Wabash College, marvels at the scene of the show. “Compared to the theater
world, this is just amazing,” he says, pointing out that academics usually don’t talk
to the people who are actually out there writing plays and putting on productions.
“Look at this place– look at just who we have in the restaurant right
now,” he says. “We’ve got working game developers, academics, and people who
cover games in the media all in one room talking to each other.”
Stories from all sides are traded. I listen to writers for mainstream publications talking about
fighting huge battles simply to move games coverage from the Technology section to the Arts or
Entertainment sections (“they finally realized that games are entertainment,” one
person says, a phrase that succinctly captures the maddening sclerosis of the old newspapers).
I tell Trent Polack of Lightbox Interactive and freelance writer Chris Dahlen about my
tribulations with source control tools after I went independent. They listen eagerly, and
I’ve overcome with the feeling that everyone here is an incandescent rock star, radiating
knowledge and ideas and unshakeable faith in the potential of the video game medium despite the
larger world’s often-demonstrated indifference.
As I power my stiff legs back to the hotel in the wee hours of the morning after another evening
of excess with inadvisably cheap liquor, I can’t help but finally mentally confront the
quantity and exceptionally wild quality of San Francisco’s bums. One of them is staggering
back and forth, screaming inhuman sounds at the top of his lungs. Someone rides by on a bicycle
and yells “Shut up!” at the old man, who, after an unsettlingly long amount of time
near to me, eventually limps his way into another part of town.
These people are impossible not to see, but the crowds and I walk down Mission or Market street
pretending not to, lest they cause us problems or remind us of things we don’t want to
remember. It is so strange, I think, how discretely we often view the world, with our categories
and our assumptions and our constant, reflexive blotting out of such large parts of our
perceptions. Hotel roommate Jeff Ward and I mumble some confused words comparing the transients
in various cities around the world before I slip into unconsciousness.
Two and a half
years ago we learned that while Michel Gondry's adaptation of
The Master of Space and Time was hitting the dust, he was
working on a project with his son, Paul: "a futuristic story with a dictator and a rebel. He's
[Paul] the dictator in the story [and] it will be based on [his] art." Fast-forward to this year's
SXSW, and The
Playlist asks again about Master. Gondry replied: "Unfortunately, that's not going to
happen, but I'm going to do something similar with Daniel [Clowes], another science fiction project
... based on a comic book made by my son." Said project is the animated
Megalomania, a collaboration that has recently attracted the
voices of Seth Rogen, Steve Buscemi, and Juliette Lewis.
Then
MTV then talked with the director, who offered yet another science fiction feature. He says
that he's working with writer (Keith Bunin) on a time travel piece, and that Ellen Page will star. It sounds
like MTV is confusing the dueling pics, as they're assuming the project that's "similar" to
Master is the time travel piece, when Playlist says the similar project is
Megalomania. I assume that these are, indeed, different projects, since
Megalomania is about kids who discover a way to create energy from hair, which ends up in
a class divide where the rich keep their hair, and the poor run around bald, which doesn't sounds
very time-travel-y.
Confusion aside, here's the kicker: Gondry told MTV: "Ellen is supposed to be the main character.
She'd play Nancy ... a young woman who participates in a discovery that changes the world." As they
note, "Nancy" is the name of one of the key people in Master of Space and Time. Just what
is going on? Stay tuned ... hopefully it will all become clear soon.
Nous sommes lundi, voici donc une nouvelle émission du LCI GameClub. Cette semaine, hormis
les traditionnels coups de coeur/gueule, nous reviendrons sur l'actualité du moment avec un
focus tout…
A partir d'aujourd'hui et jusqu'au 23 mars inclus, Gamekult organise avec Square Enix un petit
concours autour du jeu Final Fantasy XIII permettant de gagner une édition collector et 30
exemplaires standards du jeu sur PS3 et X360. Pour participer à ce concours, il suffit de se
diriger vers cett...
Après avoir avoué que le moteur de Final Fantasy XIII avait pris beaucoup de temps
à développer, Square-Enix prévoit cette fois-ci les choses en avance.
Après nous avoir sorti une nouvelle aventure dans le monde de Final Fantasy X avec Final
Fantasy X-2, Square-Enix souhaiterai faire de même avec le tout récent Final Fantasy
XIII, c'est en effet le...
I don't think the deluge will let up now that we're only three and a half months away from the
big-screen release of
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Right on the heels of the first trailer,
and just before New Moon hits DVD shelves on March 20, the YouTube feed
UnofficiallyEclipse is sharing the Eclipse sneak peek on the new DVD. I would assume this
is the previously reported
WalMart footage, but that's supposed to be 7 minutes long, and this is only 2.
Regardless, this bit of clips and sound bites from the stars should appeal, probably even more than
the trailer. Rather than focusing on the bosom-swelling romance (although there is a tiny bit of
snuggly Edward and Bella), this sneak peek is designed as an introduction to David Slade and just
why he was brought in for the darkest chapter of the book series. You see more of the cast -- chats
with Riley, Victoria, and even Bree, some glimpses of the newborn army, and a lot of quick clips of
the Cullens practicing their fighting moves before the attack.
Apparently March is a month in which Gabrielle
Bell bewitches the minds of writers, as my post today, a spotlight on Gabrielle Bell, is following up
Brian's "A Year Of Cool Comics - Day 73" post of just
yesterday. I considered pulling my post (and asked Brian if he'd prefer it) but he
said I should go ahead and jump on the bandwagon...so here you go...more Gabrielle Bell!
I'll try my best to talk about different stuff than Brian, though his post about her was
insightful and smart, so it'll be hard to avoid copying him.
Yesterday Brian said in his post:
"As I've said in the past, what I love most about Gabrielle Bell's artwork is that she is an
autobiographical artist whose work cuts to the core of the story rather than the surface - what i
mean is, her style depicts the FEELING of a particular scene, rather than some photo-realistic
view of what it it "should" look like."
And this really cuts to the core of what works to me about Bell's comics, because while Bell does
not feel like a writer more than an artist, or vice versa, there is the feeling that her images
are wholly there to service her storytelling. She doesn't seem interested in the
crazy bells and whistles that sometimes come with comic art - especially independent comics which
often includes wild experimentation with the form, instead Bell seems mostly interested in
storytelling. And there's something I really love about that.
There is some mild nudity below the cut, so read with caution.
Bell's work personally hits great notes for me as she writes a lot of stories that skate the
autobiographical /memoir line nicely (Lucky is almost entirely semi-autobiographical)
and her life (though wildly different in some ways) has many things that I can relate to - such
as living in New York City and the trials of looking for a non-ridiculous apartment in this
city. Apartment hunting is a hilarious ongoing theme in Lucky, as Bell and
her boyfriend and other friends are constantly looking for something workable and yet affordable
in New York - no small feat I can assure you. And she manages to tie her ongoing
searches together nicely with what the apartments end up meaning to her, and how they exacerbate
her current situation. It generally ends up feeling much deeper than mere apartment
hunting for apartment hunting's sake. Â Check it out:
Bell also has several great stories both in Lucky (which won an Ignatz Award for Most
Outstanding Mini Comic in 2004 before it was collected by Drawn & Quarterly) and in
her latest collected work, Cecil And Jordan in New York Stories, that are about art, art
school, being an artist, trying to be an artist, and even modeling for art classes. Â
Like New York and apartment hunting, all things I can also relate to - well, not the modeling for
art students - though if Bell's take is any indication, I wish I could relate, if only so I'd
have hilarious and poignant feelings about it:
For years of reading Bell's work I used to think it was because she and I had some basic things
in common that I so enjoyed her stories, but on examination, I don't think that's it at
all. Rather I think Bell has struck a very delicate and difficult to maintain
balance for most artists doing autobio work - a balance that is about being both unflinchingly
honest and still having a sense of humor. A work that talks about serious day to day
things, but never takes itself so seriously that you get lost in a pointless narcissistic
narrative. It's not easy to do and there are thousands of really bad autobio books,
mini comics, and webcomics out there that haven't found the right balance. But
without fail Bell seems to nail that sweet spot for me.
Some of Bell's work, like the following excerpt from her story, Cecil and Jordan, from
her collection, Cecil And Jordan In New YorkStories, starts off with a very
autobio feel, but by page three evolves into a much more fantastical tale, one that though based
in fantasy (a girl becomes a chair!) is really a heartfelt story about feeling invisible and
useless.
I think that Bell's artwork, mostly black and white with very simple almost utilitarian linework,
is a stumbling block for a lot of people that might otherwise really enjoy her humorous take on
day in the life stories and creative fantasy yarns. But I urge anyone that is put
off by the style, to give it a try anyway, the same way I would encourage anyone that watches
only blockbuster Hollywood films with lots of special effects, to try out some low budget
independent films or off-beat foreign films. There's a reason we've got so much
variety out there, and you'd be surprised what you might respond to if you just look past what
you are used to seeing, and what you expect to see and give something new a try.Â
Bell's stories are regularly heartfelt and funny, with not so buried messages about the choices
you make and don't make in life and the struggle to make something of yourself. Bell
isn't afraid to poke fun at herself or to look brutally at her relationships and decisions and
that honesty is easily felt in her pages for anyone that dives in. Brian compared
Bell's work to Lewis Trondheim and I would agree, though I would say she's more part
Lewis Trondheim, part Jeffrey Brown with her own crazy whimsy and female
perspective of course.
In addition to Bell's more autobiographical and fantastical tales, she also has a few interesting
adaptations, including one of my favorite stories, One Afternoon, from her Cecil And
Jordan collection, which is loosely based on a Kate Chopin story. It's
not a good story to post unfortunately because I'd have to post the whole thing (which I doubt
Bell would appreciate) in order for it to be fully understood, but it's a brutal tale about a
woman's brief taste of freedom, at a very high price. It's insightful and honest to
a fault - suggesting feelings and emotions on the part of the main character that few stories
would dare to admit to, or authors would even admit to conceiving of. Bell's early
collection When I'm Old And Other Stories, which in general leans much more towards
fantasy and fiction, even has a loose adaptation of Roman Polanski's 1965 film Repulsion starring
Catherine Deneuve. Recently Bell's original work has been adapted as well -
her story Cecil and Jordan was tackled in 2008 by Michael Gondry as a short
called "Interior Design"
in the film Tokyo!
Though Bell has three collected works available:Â When I'm Old And Other Stories
(Alternative Comics), Lucky (Drawn & Quarterly), and Cecil And Jordan In
New York Stories (Drawn & Quarterly); there is also a book from Drawn &
Quarterly called Kuruma Tohrimasu (Petits Livres) by filmmaker Michael
Gondry and Bell that was supposedly conceived as a thank you gift to the cast and crew of
Tokyo!. The book is mostly an art book collection of drawings and photos from the
shoot. In addition to her collected works Bell's short stories have been well
published in respected anthologies, most notably Fantagraphics's MOME, Best American
Comics 2007 and 2009, Kramer's Ergot, Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book
Four, The Comics Journal, and Scheherazade.
Bell has a semi- autobiographical "clog" (comic web log) also called Lucky, which you
can find here, along with original art
work for sale and all
sorts of other great stuff.
Bell has been featured in MOME #1, 2 (which includes an interview with Bell), 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, and 9, which you can buy here.
Morrison, probably best known to American audiences as Jango "Father of Boba" Fett, will be playing
Abin Sur. Abin Sur is a member of the Lantern Corps, and crashlands on Earth. In his dying moments,
he searches for a worthy soul to be his replacement and wield the ring. The Ring chooses the young
and cocky Hal Jordan as the successor. Obviously it's not a huge role this time around, but there's
a possibility Abin Sur could return for sequels as the comics have him popping back to assist
Jordan in various ghostly ways. It should also be interesting to see how they choose to portray the
bald and red-skinned Abin Sur. Heat Vision is silent as to whether it will be motion
capture or the old-fashioned technique known as "make-up."
Waititi's part is a lot less mythological, as he's merely playing "the best friend" of Jordan. I'm
going to make a semi-educated guess and declare that he's playing Tom Kalmaku. Tom was an Alaskan Inuit, and given
a rather racist nickname by Jordan's fellow pilots. Other than that wince-worthy moment, he's a
pretty neat character as he's one of the only people in Jordan's life who knows of his Green
Lantern gig. He's a good wingman. And who knows? Maybe we will see Waititi become one of the New
Guardians in this age of crossover movies. Filming begins this week, so begin the countdown to
costume photos!
Le duo Yoshinori Kitase / Motomu Toriyama, respectivement producteur et directeur du tout
récent Final Fantasy XIII, aimerait créer une suite directe à leur
dernier blockbuster... Un Final…
Récemment interrogé sur les chances de voir débarquer une suite directe
à Final Fantast XIII, Yoshinori Kitase, le producteur du
soft n’a, bizarrement, pas choisi de botter en touche, bien au contraire :
“Les 3 dernières années, nous avons travaillé sur la création
d’un mode nouveau et la mise en place de différents systèmes. Créer
ces systèmes n’est pas franchement quelque chose de glamour, et peut au contraire se
révéler très ennuyeux. [...] Si nous mettions en chantier un
XIII-2, nous porterions toute notre attention sur l’histoire, et
affinerions ce que nous avons déjà créé.”
Bref, gardez espoir (si vous avez été charmés par le système de jeu
de Final Fantasy XIII…)
The Square-Enix developed RPG takes the number one on the British sales chart and becomes the
fastest-selling game of the year; Modern Warfare 2 hits number two in the all-time chart.
Alors que les amateurs de RPG étaient habitués à l'époque à la
formule 'un nouveau Final Fantasy, un nouvel univers', Square Enix a bouleversé le tout en
pondant une suite à Final Fantasy X.
Depuis la fondation de son studio Mystwalker en 2004, Hironobu
Sakaguchi est comme qui dirait attendu au tournant par les fans de Final
Fantasy. Le père originel de la saga avait presque abandonné la conception
de jeux depuis l’épisode X-2 en 2002, pour s’en retourner à la
réflexion personnelle, convaincu d’avoir épuisé ses réserves
créatives.
Alors quand en janvier dernier, Sakaguchi San officialisait son nouveau projet Wii au titre
autoréférentiel The Last Story, je ne sais pas pour vous, mais
j’étais déjà tout frétillant.
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The jury may
still be out on 
[In a GameSetWatch-exclusive set of blog posts covering the week of 
Two and a half
years ago we learned that while 
spotlight on Gabrielle Bell, is following up
Brian's 
New Zealand seems to be the
place to recruit men and women for your fantasy or sci-fi epics. 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
