Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Lionhead Studio's The Movies is on one level a simulation game. If you've played games like Railroad Tycoon, or even The Sims, you'll know the basics. However, hidden inside the game is something else – a simple movie-making engine that can actually be used to create animated films of any length. The movies that result are not quite Toy Story quality, but they're darned impressive, especially considering how quickly they can be cobbled together.
 
The game has already proven itself capable of creating politically controversial material. Soon after it arrived on shelves, it was used to create a thirteen-minute film called The French Democracy, which covered the riots in France from the point of view of those involved. This short film has appeared in numerous film festivals, and been nominated for several awards.
 
If you want to see some examples of what The Movies can do, make a quick visit to Duck! Cheney, or visit any of the literally tens of thousands of films now hosted at Lionhead's site. Note that the quality of animation you see in looking at the online movies isn't reflective of what the tool can actually generate. The Movies can crank out animation at "better than DVD" quality, but to keep the file size down for the online version, it also puts out a highly compressed version. (If anyone is interested in a 30MB higher quality version of Duck! just let me know).
 
Admittedly, the film in the title of this piece is unlikely to play any film festivals, or to win any awards. However, if it's a bit unpolished, that's because it was put together in about two hours by someone who is still only vaguely familiar with the game's controls. Here's a brief intro to the tool. Think of it as The Making of Duck! Cheney.
 
I've played only a little with the simulation game that's wrapped around the movie-making tools. It's a good game, but from the moment I dove into my own "script studio" and started "writing films," I lost my interest in the overarching game. It doesn't matter much. Playing the game a time or two helps to introduce the various parts of your studio, but once you have it down, you can basically ignore the game and get right to the film making.
 
The film making tool is basically two parts: a script studio for writing films, and a post-production facility for editing scenes for length and adding sound.
 
The script studio has to be the most innovative part of The Movies. Rather than having you actually write a script, or presenting you with lots of tedious step by step choices as are found in most 3D animation tools, The Movies gives you a collection of sets and a selection of "scenes." Scenes consist of one or more articulated wooden manikins going through a series of canned actions. For example, here's a scene from Duck! as it was being created.
 

 
This scene offered four of the wooden manikins: one shooting, one dancing, and two standing by as spectators. The tool allows you to dress your characters from hundreds of costumes and select their appropriate hair styles, make up, etc. Then you can select which actors are to be used in a scene. In this case, I dragged out my Dick Cheney figure and dropped him onto the shooter figure. Then the chicken-suited agent was plopped onto the figure doing the hot foot. The other two figures were left as manikins – they'll disappear when the movie is "filmed."
 
At the bottom of this image you can see the list of sets and scenes currently used in Duck!. In this case, all the scenes were in the "Rural Field" set, but there are many more available, from subway cars and city streets, to battlefields and starship corridors. Each set has dozens of scenes, ranging from such simple shots as quick actor close ups and to elaborate actions in which a dozen figures work out a war time skirmish.
 
Once you have all the basic scenes worked out in the script studio, it's time to shoot your movie. If you're playing the simulation, you can actually watch the movie being filmed. Cast and crew will dutifully troop off to the designated sets and literally go through every motion you've dictated before the watching cameras. It's very neat to watch, but you also have to deal with whining stars (half of whom quickly start throwing tantrums or turning into drunks), dwindling budgets, and such esoterica as where to place the bathrooms and snack carts. Fortunately, the game has a "sandbox" mode that lets you skip over that part and head straight into post-production.
 
The post-production facility is where you add sound and where you edit your film. The game comes with a collection of royalty-free music allowing you to quickly set a score for your film. It you're talented enough to write your own tunes, they can also be easily imported. There's also a big can of sound effects for use by the budding Foley artist.
 

 
Anyone who has used any sort of video editing tool will quickly recognize The Movie's post-production facility as a very simple form of track editor. That's true enough, and the limitations of the tool can also be frustrating. However, it has some abilities that are also extraordinary. For example, you can record your own voice (either in the game or using another tool) and then have one of the characters lip-synch to your speech. Heck, just watch old Cheney growling along with my horrid imitation. It's more than a little fun to see these characters mouth the words you provide. Should you not be interested in proving to the world that you're singularly ungifted at voice acting (proving that you have more pride than I do), you can also use subtitles.
 
When you have the film edited to your liking, and the sounds lined up with the on screen action, you can export your video to a Windows media file. From there you can upload to Lionhead's site, or take it anywhere else you like.
 
And I expect you're going to be seeing many more films that had their starts in this product. Sure, there are plenty of much more capable packages out there, both on the 3D front and for video editing. But I don't care whether you're a pro at Poser or a maestro of Maya and Shake, you're going to have a hard time matching The Movie's sheer speed and ease of use. I whipped this entire example together -- miserable voices and all -- in about two hours. That kind of speed means that a single person can quickly create an animation that addresses almost any issue.
 
I expect to see this tool used a lot as we got through the summer and head toward the elections. You'll certainly see The Movies used to promote - or hurt - candidates. And you may even see it used by official campaigns (and hey, I'm happy to offer my services as director to anyone who has an idea they want to see come to life).
 
For now, go over and give me some feedback on Dick vs. the giant whistle-blowing chickens. For later, be prepared to see more of The Movies coming at your from both right and left.