The ‘problem’ of the cut scene, at least in so far as it relates to the ongoing debate about interruption of interactivity and narrative exposition, rather than being a problem of functionality, appears instead to be a question about the propriety of decisions made by designers on issues of perspective. As such it is best addressed in the framework of editing, rhythm and to a lesser extent that of montage.
This rather cryptic statement means merely to suggest that instead of deciding what is appropriate to video games strictly in the terms of interactivity vs narrative, designers and artists should instead review their understanding of the film form in the terms of editorial rhythm, aesthetic expression and above all cinematic tact.
It may be of some value to first examine the terms upon which we often build our discussion of interactivity and film aesthetics in the context of video game play. This, as I would argue, is strictly an issue of reconciling our discomfort with the differences between kinesthetic and contemplative experiences.
Let’s consider a situation where the movement of a character/avatar is the immediate and direct result of player manipulation (and such movement is not pre-plotted as in a click and point adventure game or on an otherwise fixed track of movement because such a situation reformulates our relationship to the contents of the screen frame in a very significant way).
How does this kind of ‘directly affective’ interface influence the relationship between the player and the game’s immersive space in terms of projecting perspective?
The first point to make on this issue appears to arise from the idea that the player’s own relationship to the immersive world on the screen does not necessarily mirror that of the avatar or game character, at least not in the sense that the player would project himself into the game world (we are after all not present in the world of the game but instead affect its sequential flow). The player’s recognition of this fact can never be said to entirely subside. We always understand our relationship to the game (often in terms of the rules by which we decide to abide within its immersive space), even if at times this knowledge is allowed to become implicit rather than explicit (in such cases as the immersive space of the game is realistic in the context of the moral universe into which it posits us) .
Instead of some abstract transference of psyche into the space of the game, the immediately level of control allows the player to internalize the avatar’s responses as an extension and direct function of his own motor skill. This, after all is the basic idea behind learning the game. The game offers a set of rules by which it may be controlled – much like sport, reading or any other structured activity. Our engagement with these rules, the methods which we employ to engage with them, as well as the way they may be rejected forms the basis of our relationship with the game’s internal space. Thus, through the process of extending his reach into the game, the player becomes an active force in the evolution of events which occur within the space of the screen but critically only does so on the kinetic level, by external action and its internal reaction.
If an action in the external world (such as a key press) elicits a response in the immersive one (such as a movement), it is therefore by way of the kinetic interface that the perspective of the player as well as the perspective of the game world are synchronized. They become joined not on the dramatic or aesthetic levels, but rather on the physiological one. Ability to directly affect, in this sense, therefore means the ability to co inhabit but only to do so via kinetic proximity.
This same ‘engagement by proximity’ mechanism is, coincidentally also at work when the controls of a game do not respond correctly or quickly enough. The player will probably feel annoyed and his experience of the inability to generate or influence game movement in the anticipated way will prevent him from engaging in the internal space of the screen fully.
The intuitive link is broken since the player’s perspective, and the game’s no longer align.
This I believe is what we are talking about when we discuss issues of interactivity within any immersive space: how are actions in the immersive world constrained within the context of the player’s ability to kinetically engage with them.
When we are watching a film, we understand that our involvement in the action on the screen is non-existent. I do not mean this in the qualitative sense as such style of engagement is neither positive nor negative but merely a different kind of experience. Instead, the act of viewing without participation simply puts the viewer into a fully contemplative and non-kinetic state.
So what exactly does all this have to do with the cut scene..
If the use of the cut scene means an injection of purely contemplative material into a fundamentally kinetic experience, do we therefore avoid the risk of offending the player by abandoning the cut scene completely?
The games industry has not done so, at least not in so direct a way. Instead it has largely focused to transform the cut-scene into a narrative experience which arises from the perspective external to the player (through NPCs, sound clips etc).
The problem of the cut scene as such is not its existence inside the interactive space of the game. Players in fact appear to enjoy the additional layers of immersion which it can provide. The problem with its use ought rather to be viewed as the inappropriate sequencing of what is a fundamentally contemplative medium within the context of an inherently kinetic one. These are two very different actions, and while both have an inherent value on their own, the method of their integration requires both an understanding of rhythm and aesthetic tact.
Even in its most classical state – the insertion of pre-rendered film matter, the cut scene can still be be effectively integrated without causing the kind of perspective disjunction that forms the basis of criticism against it. The designer need only be careful that the cut scene does not inappropriately intersect with sections of kinetic action.
1. If the designer creates specific goals which the player must achieve in order to realize narrative progression, it makes very little sense to abruptly interrupt the expected flow of kinesthetic events with non-interactive content: To interrupt a conversation, as many of us have been taught, is rather a rude way of joining it.
2. once the player has accomplished a given objective, they will be more readily willing to further contemplate the diegetic world of the game narrative (though this does not necessarily mean that he ought to be forced to do so, again the metaphor of the conversation comes in handy).
This in a sense is what might be meant when we talk about episodic development in game play. An episode of kinetic engagement may be followed by contemplative engagement (Max Payne 2 is a superb example of the way that episode based editing can lead to a positive integration of the cut scene) and indeed the pattern by which such involvement occurs ought not simply follow the familiar structure of A,B,A,B etc. but the switch between the two may be done in such a way as not to interrupt the player’s involvement in either. This is especially the case when the level of interruption is restricted to the game’s internal world.
Shenmue – a game which many admire for its innovative approach to cinematography is at the same time one of my favorite examples of instances where the contemplative experience had been rudely interrupted (often without warning) by a scripted time-action event. In the long run, innovative as it might have been, the uncertainty of when such imposition might occur next had always left me feeling uncomfortable with fully enjoying the dramatic sequences.
The other point of contention for many people is the change in aesthetic definition that the player experiences when a cut scene is pre-rendered. Once again, a pre-rendered cut scene has often been used effectively, however, the proximity between the player perspective, the game perspective and the kinetic vs contemplative state deserves further distancing.
This is the case with Diablo II, one of a number of games that I believe fundamentally appreciated the editorial rhythm and distance required to accomplish the integration of a fully pre-rendered and visually impressive cut scene. The reason for this is that the distancing between the completion of an episode’s kinetic objectives from the contemplative content was sufficient enough to make them a kind of welcome (but not enforced) reward. Interestingly, in the case of Diablo II the use of the cut scene in relation to the narrative was also further removed from the kinetic relationship that develops between the player and the avatar through the use of a parallel storyline (that is, a pre-rendered cut scene which does not concern the player or the avatar immediately, but instead follows other characters and shadows the events of the game’s progression through an external dramatic perspective).
In the case of the first person shooter the inappropriateness of interrupting the kinetic proximity which develops between the player and the avatar is the most direct since the FPS in effect directly aligns the player’s own view of the immersive world with that of the character. This, quite likely, is the reason why designers are increasingly opting for sound bites and scripted NPC action (for example in Half Life 2) as opposed to pre-rendered sequences (at least once the game has begun).
It is also interesting to note that in the examples specifically mentioned below, there is always a time gap between the conclusion of heavily engaging kinetic action (fighting, moving items around, getting out of negative situations) and the occurrence of the scripted cut-scene event. This, in fact, is analogous to the good sense rules of rhythm in showmanship: A good band will rarely play a gig where the fast song is immediately followed by a slow song without any kind of temporal transition. It is innately difficult for us to move from a kinetically engaged and often an adrenaline charged state to a contemplative state without being offered the chance to calm down first. The now defunct Interplay’s Descent series partially solved this problem by associating the exit door of a given level with the immediate triggering of the cut-scene sequence. This kind of understood expectation allowed the player to channel the excitement of escape into the feeling of relief when the cut-scene began.
In the FPS genre, there is also the additional problem of aligning the cut scene’s narrative function regardless of the method of integration, too directly with the player’s own perspective resulting in the breakage of the fourth wall. Here the inappropriateness of disabling the player from engaging in the action which occurs on screen is amplified in terms of making evident the player’s secondary status in the diegetic world of the narrative. Games like Bioshock put this problem of self-consciousness in the foreground on predominantly post modern terms. The danger of such approach is, much like the danger faced by nearly all other post modern aesthetic movements inclusive of cinema, the collapse of its novelty. You can only rub the limits of the art form’s structural foundation in the face of your audience so many times before they find some better way of entertaining themselves.
On the other hand, in a point and click game or any other scenario where the player’s involvement with the movement of the on screen space is not quite so directly coincidental, the cut scene can and often should be inserted at a variety of different points without requiring the kind of tact that the more immediate interface would call for. Since the player’s involvement is less kinetically direct (and therefore the perspective is more contemplative), the experience isn’t anywhere as jarring and therefore the same sense of rhythm isn’t necessarily required.
An interesting question arises from our exploration of the cut-scene as a predominantly narrative tool: Can the moving image alone be evocative enough to provide aesthetic interest without offering predominantly narrative drives?
In the case of the cinema, we might view the non-narrative sequence, that is sequences which exist within the narrative world but which do not directly affect its development (merely its exposition in novel ways) as a kind of vignette.
Turning to our trusty dictionary we might come up with a definition of the word vignette as “illustrative” rather than descriptive. This, in fact is the primary point of the non-narrative appreciation of cinema – that of a moment which is not by its very definition representational or iconic, but one which focuses on the nature of movement as it is projected in the contemplative space of the screen.
In hoping to remove some of the layers of abstraction that such a definition seems to imply, I would proclaim that such moments occur often in a large number video games (though I can with some certainty speak of a multitude in other games as weel) and strangely remain the most under appreciated area of criticism in professional discussion of video games and cinematic aesthetics.
To draw on the recently en-shrined and en-fabled example of Bioshock that is still fresh in our collective memory: The first of these moments occurs at a point in the game where the player encounters a big daddy and little sister for the first time. Indeed this moment is discussed (albeit in a largely narrative filter – a filter which certainly is appropriate but once again has a tendency to obscure the power of the artistic cinematic image itself) along with a number of other ‘moments’ in a recent Kevin Levine interview.
Another occurs at a point where the game when the player encounters the character Fitzpatrick.
In a moment from Half-Life 2, Episode 2, a ‘portal storm’ results in a bridge being knocked down.
These moments are, of course, part of the narrative world, but even more importantly they are illustrative and expressive in a way that reflects the cinematic moment as a moment of visual significance, of movement, time and space beckoning to be viewed as a thing in and of itself, not simply just understood in terms of narrative significance.
To draw on Kantian philosophy of aesthetics, theirs is the subjugation of the pleasure and power of the sublime , of that which does not lend itself to the temptingly linguistical interpretive apparatus, but instead to the visual and auditory sense of the world of which we are a part (immersive or otherwise)
Here on the various levels upon which the cutscene can be utilized (as externally pre-rendered or as triggered event internal to the immersive space of the game itself) the cinematic image can in fact dominate the aesthetic forum and give us another vision of the cinematic image which is impressive but not procedural in its approach to narrative construction.
Posted in Opposing the Narrative Urge
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