American Cinematographer - October 2008 - (Page 20)

20 October 2008 Need for Speed: Undercover photos courtesy of Electronic Arts and Jeffrey Seckendorf. Chase (Maggie Q) takes aim in the game Need for Speed: Undercover, scheduled for release this month. “It was great to shoot a digital project with the Red One’s full-size chip, as I was able to use all my favorite lenses and have the depth-of-field control that’s long been missing from digital acquisition,” notes cinematographer Jeffrey Seckendorf, who shot 22 minutes of live-action footage for the game. Grounding Gamers in the Real World by Stephanie Argy Video-game creators have long been wary of incorporating live-action footage into their games, fearing it might disconnect players from the fantasy in which they are immersed. “It’s a huge risk,” observes Mataio Gardi, development director at Electronic Arts (EA) Black Box. But a new version of the game Need for Speed might help change that — and might redefine the way game creators and filmmakers collaborate. For Need for Speed: Undercover, slated for release this month, EA Black Box asked director Joseph Hodges and cinematographer Jeffrey Seckendorf to create 22 minutes of narrative footage, which was then used to set the look and style for the game. According to Gardi, the company decided its computergenerated footage appeared photo-realistic enough to intercut smoothly with live-action elements, but having good visual storytelling in the latter would be key. “We wanted to do this right and get a good director and cinematographer,” he says. Hodges, the production designer on the television series 24 (AC Feb. ’04), had previously directed a smaller job for EA. For Need for Speed, he brought on producer Eric Mofford, a 24 collaborator, and Mofford tapped Seckendorf to shoot the project. At first, Seckendorf turned the job down, but as Mofford explained how the footage would establish the game’s look, the cinematographer became intrigued. “Really, it’s a feature film wrapped in a game,” says Seckendorf. “They hired us because we’re filmmakers, not game-makers. They said, ‘Make the footage look as amazing as you can, and we’ll make the game look like that.’” Hodges and Seckendorf had to shoot about 55 individual scenes and sequences — ranging from one-shot pieces to scenes as long as 90 seconds — that will appear after the players complete a level of the game. “I’ll never see the stuff because I’ll never get past Level One!” jokes Seckendorf. Hodges, though, is an avid gamer, and “he really understood how the narrative elements had to fit into the game,” says Seckendorf. The director also knew he would have to impose a Hollywood-style hierarchy on the EA team. “The problem with [gaming] is it’s like walking into a schoolroom without a teacher, and all the kids are throwing paper around,” says Hodges. “There are no professional borders — everyone thinks he’s an art director, and everyone thinks he’s a writer. I had to say, ‘I’m the director, and this is how it’s going to be.’” In the past, says Hodges, liveaction game elements have usually consisted of actors standing in front of the camera and talking to the players, something he finds very uncomfortable to watch. “We changed the script for Need for Speed to give the performers something to do,” he explains. He tried to make the audience feel like part of the scene by having the actors talking with one another and occasionally glancing over at the camera, as if it’s another character, and by moving the camera behind objects so viewers would feel as though they’re in the set. During prep, Seckendorf investigated various digital cameras, including Panavision’s Genesis, and he eventually decided on the Red One, partly because he and Hodges wanted to shoot with multiple cameras, something that was relatively affordable with the One. He chose the oldest set of Zeiss Standard Speed primes he could find, as well as two new Angenieux zooms, a 17-80mm and a 24-290mm. The shoot took place entirely in a

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign Production Slate: Prison Break Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover Middle East Intrigue Kingdom of Light Memoirs of a Spook Landmark Gains Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman

American Cinematographer - October 2008

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