Ever fancied being a Hollywood mogul, but just didn’t have the spare hundred million to set up your own studio? Ever thought that if you’d made Speed 2, Wild Wild West or Batman and Robin they would have been runaway successes, with you as the scriptwriter, casting director and producer?

Well now you can and without even leaving your own room! ‘The Movies’ is the new game that puts you at the top of the film food chain and if you’re left with a turkey, there’s no one to blame but.. you! Hire the unknown carpenter on set and turn him into a superstar just like Harrison Ford!

And who better to chat with than THE gaming master, Peter Molyneux – the man who revolutionised the industry creating his own gaming genre. Founder of Lionhead Productions, Molyneux was the man behind such titles as the seminal blockbuster Black & White II and advisor on Homeworld, Relic Entertainment’s revolution to 3D RTS. He now brings his own awesome talent to bear on a new game, The Movies, where you play as a Hollywood mogul. This is THE game you’ll want in the stocking at Christmas!

Peter Molyneux joins us live online on Tuesday 22nd November at 1900hrs to tell us what inspired the development of his latest creation, ‘The Movies’. He’ll be joined by Hollywood Producer, James Herbert who’ll be giving his take on the movie world, having worked on Sahara, Troy, Gladiator and Revolver, as well as a host of other major blockbusting movies.

For more information visit http://www.themoviesgame.com/

Host: Murray Norton (MN)

Panelists: Peter Molyneux (PM) and James Herbert (JM)

MN: Hello and welcome to web chats, very nice of you to join us. We have with us two of the movers and shakers of the world of gaming and the world of Blockbuster movies. I am delighted to say that joining us here on the sofa today. You have been termed as the God Father of the gaming industry and you like that title don't you?

PM: Well it's kind of descriptive, it's better than the Grandfather, which it will be in a few years I'm quite sure.

MN: Stick with the God Father. Peter Molyneux, thank you very much indeed for coming along today, its great to see you. There's the new game that you've got out at the moment called 'The Movies.' we'll be looking at that in just a second, stay right where you are with that and also representing the film industry itself, an editor from many a movie, there's a whole row of them out there, but I suppose 'Revolver' is the big talking point. There are many, many others that you have been involved in, so it's a delight to have you with us as well. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. And that was James Herbert who's with us. Now you are watching at home, or wherever you happen to be, and of course there is a little box underneath there which you can put your question in. We've had loads and loads of questions already and we will take a sample of those questions and ask the guys here on the sofa with us in just a few minutes time. But if you have a question, a burning issue about the gaming industry or about the movie industry, now is your chance. All you've got to do is fill in the box below and send it off to us and in the next half hour we'll do our best to get those questions answered. And whilst we're thinking of some of the questions that you might be sending through to us, lets just have a look at that game we were just talking about, it's the latest one you've produced, its called 'The Movies' and this is your chance really to be the megalomaniac of the movie industry. Is that right?

PM: Well that's right. I mean it was an idea that I had about 3 years ago and the idea is really pure and simple. You run a movie studio, you have to create stars, you have to look after those stars and most importantly you have to make movies and you can make any movie you like all set within the game. So I'm very, very proud of what we've done.

MN: Alright. Its something we'll be talking more about in just a second but for now lets just have a look at what 'The Movies' looks like.

MN: Well, there you have it. That gives you some idea of what 'The Movies' is all about? There is an awful lot more to it than that and its creator Peter Molyneux is with us here. Peter just one question that has come in from Hero 164, whoever you may be, thank you very much indeed for your question, is this a game, is this a tool, it seems to blur both?

PM: Well, that's the interesting thing. When we sat down and designed it, the first thing we said was has this got to be a game. You've got to enjoy playing the game, got to get involved in it. You've got to get hooked in it. And the moment it really turns into a tool is when you're playing it and you think this is a great game and suddenly you think, crikey, I just made a movie and this is a unique movie, its like no-one else's movie. It's your story. It is what you've created and that's where we are really blurring these lines between a game and a tool and what I would say is a lot of gamers when they've been playing games they may have found themselves being creative, my hero is the only hero like it, my lands the only like it, well now with 'The Movies' you can create the movie of your dreams. So it's a combination of the two.

MN: Creating movies, it's something you've been doing in real life James for some time. You've had a look at the game?

JH: Yes I have.

MN: So, initial opinions. You think it's realistic?

JH: Absolutely. I mean from the editing point of view it's much better for editing. I just get given the shots. On this, because you can direct at the same time, chose your angles and mix it around, you can really create exactly what you want. And from seeing some of the movies the guys have done its so fascinating what you can get from it.

MN: As a tool towards the movie industry, can you see this being something similar to it, people saying well hang on a minute, lets have a look at what it might look like if we used 'The Movies' to make it?

JH: I think its good for people, its just another tool, because you've got 'Final Cut Pro' now to use on the Mac, which people make their home movies from, but with this from the gaming world, because its so interactive now with using the internet and stuff, it just makes short movies cheap, it doesn't cost you anything to make it, you can do it all from home. It gives you quite a wide variety using cowboys and chickens and everything else you can use. It's good.

MN: Alright, so for you it's got some realism to it?

JH: Absolutely.

MN: Because we need to know from somebody who works in the movie industry, which most of us don't, just what its like in there and if it's a bit like this, then that's close.

JH: We don't really have any big studios in this country like they do in America so it's a lot more involved. With a game you can't just concentrate on that one aspect because there is so much you have to control, the whole studio. You've got to get revenue in, you've got to control your actors, and there's just so much going on in it. It's not like a five-minute game.

PM: Well that's part of the skill of making a computer game. It's to make sure there's enough going on, but not too much going on. Actually I have to say that I did actually do some research on Hollywood and I went over there and spent some time over there and it's completely crazy, its just mad, a barking mad world.

MN: Great. Well we've got the game of it all now. Thank you for your questions that are coming in at an alarming rate. Ian Kay, thank you very much, says, Hi Peter. He wants to know is there any plans to extend 'The Movies' so the movie making facilities, if you like, are broadened out a little bit?

PM: Yes, absolutely. This is one of the things that we really planned on early on and actually working on downloads, patches, even add-on discs so that we're going to give people a lot more power to make the movies they want and a lot more features in the game. And that's one of the real joys of making a game like this. It feels like with 'The Movies' it's the start of something. It feels like we're going to be doing this for quite some considerable time. What I want to do with those add-ons and those new downloads, is really surprise people. It's not just do what the obvious thing is, not just going to give you more sets and more scenes to actually play with, actually give you whole new facilities to mess around with.

MN: One of those questions that has been coming in a great deal, is about camera angles. Will there be opportunity to be able to move the camera angle, have a freer camera angle so you can put it where you want to put it as opposed to the options where it is now. I don't know how that translates in programming time?

PM: Yeah, surprisingly, camera angles was one of the things that we took out as designers. The reason we took it out is we didn't want it to be overly techy and overly complex. Now we will want to definitely put that back in again and for those people who want a directors cut, that's very very high on our list at the moment.

MN: One thing I have noticed is you have a forum so if somebody makes their movie, their shorts, whatever it may be, they can put that up on the forum. It can be graded and marked by anyone else who wants to join in and have a look at that. Do you actually get to look at those in your spare time? It's Nonort who's sent that question. He just wants to know do you get round to watching these films?

I do and I have to say it is an incredible experience. I can't describe to you how incredible it is when you think of a game idea, and I thought of 'The Movies' 3 years ago, and then to see it in the shops is amazing, but then to go online to this website and see the thousands of movies, now, when I looked after 3 days after the game had been released, almost 8000 movies online and some of those movies I just thought, how did they do that? How did they make that movie and it's really an incredible experience. My favourite was one called 'Gorillas that I've Missed' and it was just a fantastic skit on a movie that was really well cut and its dialogue was brilliant, it was fantastic, a real experience.

MN: James, it sounded like you were just about to come in there with a comment on something?

JH: I was just wondering if on the forum, when everyone puts their movies up, will they be running competitions or anything? Is that something you will be doing at all?

PM: Yeah, we are planning a pretty big competition but I don't think it's something I can talk about now but it's going to be pretty large. My ultimate dream, to give you a little hint of what the competition might be; my ultimate dream is that people who make the movies and upload them, the best movies get made into live action movies. That would be so cool. Imagine playing a game, uploading your movie, everybody liking your movie, winning a competition and then having real actors and a real director actually direct that movie short. I would love that.

MN: What about the other way round? Do you get a point where you could almost retrospectively start saying, well ok, 'Revolver' was great, but hey could we do this now using 'The Movies' as a tool?

PM: Well you know this is one of the things that we're thinking about. This is just a thought at the moment, not a reality, but if there was a really successful film, could we give people the sets and indeed the actors from that film and say, there you go. Make your own version of that and take it where you want to take it. And that's where I think this really can get exciting and whatever that film maybe, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but it could be some really big film, you take it and change the ending.

MN: How long has this been in development for? How long do you develop something like this because a movie can take two or three years to make at a time so the development must of taken that long?

PM: Well it all starts with an idea, and that idea was at five am on January 19th in 2002

MN: You remember it well?

PM: I remember it well because I just woke up and I thought, why the hell has no-one done a game about making movies? And I was really excited and I wrote all the idea down and I turned round to my partner and said, hey, I've had this idea. and she said, go back to sleep and stop being so stupid. And that's how it started and then 3 years later this is where we are. It takes a lot of time, a lot of people. It was about 80 people in just development that worked on the game programs and artists. So it's a huge effort.

MN: Have you made any movies yourself? You must have made some in the trial, and where are they and when can we see them?

PM: Yes I have made movies and as with movies you can pick up a microphone and start putting your own lines in and that's when I realised for the first time that I will never be an actor.

PM: And the movies I made, I am a science fiction nut, as I would be of course and I tried to do a remake of something called 'Forbidden Planet' which was a fantastic film and as soon as I picked up the microphone my acting skills totally ruined it and at that point I realised the world must never see this movie because it was just so embarrassing,, it's too embarrassing.

MN: You know your place don't you, you definitely know your place. That's designing the games, not acting in them.

PM: Absolutely, I'm not going to ever be an actor.

MN: Tempest, thank you very much indeed for your question, which was about the development time. Which I think we have now covered so thank you very much indeed for that. James, I was just going to ask you, we very glibly sort of said, editor on some great blockbusters, what exactly does the editor do? Because it's as close as we're going to get to a movie maker isn't it?

JH: Sure, you get the footage in, they'll shoot the footage and we start right at the beginning of the production, we look through pre production for a film, choose their actors, choosing their location and all that sort of stuff, and then as soon as the cameras start rolling, we start getting the footage in. And then you start choosing the shots, best performance from each take, put them together, put some music under it, give it a look as such, if its going to be fast paced, slow paced. A lot like the game what you can do. The only limitations, is as you said, with the angles but that's more of a directors thing. So it's more like an editor from that point of view because you're given what you can work with from the angles. Once the director has finished shooting he'll come in and sit with you through the end of the film and then you have 10 weeks directors cut where you fine tune it, swap performances and make any change you want really.

MN: So the editor makes and breaks?

JH: Yes, absolutely. While the director's on shoot its your movie and you can do whatever you want with it to a certain extent and when he comes on he'll look at your different variations of cuts and styles and say I like that, I don't like that. The more you work with a director you should be on the same level, so you know what he's going to want at the end of the day.

MN: So do editors become directors, or do directors become editors? Or do the two never meet?

JH: Well Ridley Scott's old editor he's just started to direct, but usually they say the best directors come from editors, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. But I think its more power in it than an editor wants. It's an ego thing really to the director.

MN: OK, we're talking here to the God Father of gaming, and I was actually looking back over the games that you produced over the years and there is a control feel to them.

PM: Yes there is.

MN: And to be fair, whether its black and white or whatever and just thinking about that, is that an extention of your personal views, is there a great deal of control in there for you or do you want to give control to others?

PM: What it is, I think, when you do a game, when you make a game, when you think of a game idea, part of the real power of it is to give people the ability to do things they simply couldn't do in their real lives. So, you know a lot of my games have been about being a god or being a hero or being in control of something whether it be a land or a city, and that is something which none of us have, well unless you're Tony Blair of course, and none of us have the power to be in control of things, And I think that is a really, really powerful thing and quite a unique thing because film is all about you sort of thinking, oh, I'm a bit like that person. But a game is all about you being that person and that is a real distinction. And for me I think there is a lot of mileage in that.

MN: Ok, lots of questions coming in. In fact a lot of comments coming in, a lot of people saying how much they love 'The Movies.' A lot of people saying how they really enjoyed the black and white black and white two, is there going to be a three? Are there going to be extensions to that? Please don't leave out the creatures. We've got all of those comments. So can we take those on block and say there is an awful lot of people out there that are satisfied with what you are doing? Lets have another look at something you put together, that your company put together which was all about what you can do if you like with 'The Movies'. It's a little documentary. It's a little featurette about the movie industry and the history of the movie industry. Let's just take a look at that.

MN: Well, there you see some of the capabilities and more that you can now do with 'The Movies'. The creator of that, the God Father of the gaming industry as he's been called, Peter Molyneux, is with us and editor from many a movie including 'Revolver.' and am I right in thinking you were also involved in 'Dune' or 'Gladiator'?

JH: Gladiator. That's when I was working my way up through the ranks. I started down as a runner, and then worked my way up through the industry but that's where I started out.

MN: What a great movie to be involved in and congratulations on that. James Herbert is with us as well. Plenty of questions coming in from people. We'll try and get through as many of these questions as we possibly can. I just want to ask you a question about multi-layering, multi-playering should I say. A lot of people asking, 'The Movie' is great, is there going to be an opportunity to multi-player this game, so you can end up with two or three people putting into the same input?

PM: You know that I would love to do that and that may well be an add-on which we would consider. Doing anything online and multi-player is quite a big effort and you've got to compare that effort with putting a new feature in the game. One of the early things that we did with 'The Movies' to balance it, we had visibility to play one studio against the other. I'm not sure the status on that. Personally I would love to see that.

MN: Ok. We've got a question here, which is a very specific question. I'm going to read this out, forgive me looking down the screen for doing so. It says, hey I'm the guy who did 'The Hunted SE', you'll probably know what we're talking about here, and for Peter, I'm wondering what features, if any will be implemented, by patch or expansion, to expedite the process of making movies. 'The Hunted SE', took almost 6 days and no voice over or custom music, and for James, assuming that you have checked out a few TMO films, are there any particular that stand out for you? Thanks in advance.

PM; Well, that's a pretty big question, the answer is yes, we are streamlining the movie making process. We are trying to speed it up. The whole team is actually working on that as we speak now. We're releasing a patch in early December, which is going to address some issues I have. This is a great thing about having a community there. We try to listen to as many people as we can and incorporate features in. We are also releasing something called 'The Prop Shop' on the 7th December. That should be interesting, and additionally, a number of downloads and then going forwards I can imagine, no date on this yet, but we're definitely, and its very high on our list, an add-on to do with what we call the directors cut. The ability to actually shorten that process down, control more stuff. We're considering allowing you to put, its hard for me to say exactly without giving the feature away…

MN: You've got to hold something back haven't you?

PM: You've got to hold something back, but in the way of having props that do more, I think is the best way of doing it and giving you much more flexibility and power.

MN: You're just wetting the appetite basically aren't you? James, for you. A question here. Not quite sure I understand. Assuming you have checked out a few TMO films, are there any that particularly stand out for you?

JH: I think the name was called 'Visitors', I'm not 100% sure on that. I like the idea that you can watch a movie then try and re-create it yourself and make a few changes. But I think because you have such a vast thing there, you can use a tool there, you can do whatever you want, get as creative as you want. I like the ones that are very artistic and just a little bit out there. The more artistic and adventurous the better really.

MN: Darrick has a question for you, thank you very much indeed for that. He wants to know, to date, which single game of yours are you most proud of.

PM: Wow, that's a hard question. There's been a lot over the years.

MN: Always the last one isn't it?

PM: 'The Movies' is fantastic. I mean the first game that I did, well the first real game that I did was called 'Populus' and that still remains one of the ones I am most proud of because it was totally unexpected. It was really such a huge hit in its time. In the very early 90's, it was one of the top 10 games in the world and that was an amazing achievement. You know I was just a kid, well not a kid, a 20 year old messing around on a computer and I just decided to release it and it all happened from there.

MN: It all went from there.

PM: It did, it really did.

MN: Life has never been the same since.

PM: It absolutely hasn't.

MN: Thank you Darrick for your question. Also Gtoon just wants to compliment, bravo on the sound on 'The Movies'. Gtoon works in sound and says it was just fantastic. The sound guys obviously worked pretty hard on this.

PM: Yes they did and we used someone called Daniel Pemberton who is incredibly talented. He's done a lot of TV music work and Russell Shores worked extremely hard who's done all the sound for just about every game I've ever worked on. 'The Movies' was a totally different prospect for them because it's an editing tool and a game and a real challenge for them.

MN: Lots of questions coming in and one in from 'Mastering Commander'. You know who you are. Alright, what age group is this going to be for? Who are you aiming for when you release a game like 'The Movies' It's got so many different options to it, it must be difficult to target your audience?

PM: Well. The first thing was when we were designing it was, we could make this very complex and we could make this for people like yourself, who knew exactly how to make movies. We steered away from that. What we decided to do was try and make it for as broad an audience as we could, as wide a range as we could. Now personally I think, there is nothing in 'The Movies' that I would have any problem with my son seeing. It isn't rated a PG essentially because you, the user, can create some content in there which could be deemed as disturbing, but I think it's for any age. Certainly, the really hard thing to do with 'The Movie' surprisingly wasn't the movie making technology. That was pretty easy, it was the interface. What you do, what you click on, what happens when you click on something. That was really tough and we went over and over again. The reason we did that was to try and make it so that anybody could play the game.

MN: I tell you what I found fun with 'The movie' not only the movie making skills and the angles and that side of it, which we were essentially talking about, but there's also the side of it as you said right at the beginning, choosing and casting, handling these people, and there is always this risk when we're playing with movies that we just make a block buster don't we? It's very simple. What happens if it all goes wrong and you end up with a turkey, and that can happen in the game as it can in real life?

PM: Well yes. That is the game part. The fact that these actors and directors that you deal with, are little virtual people and they have their moods and they have affairs and they develop problems, over-eating problems, they get drinking problems, they get stressed and that affects the quality of the movie and that is all part of the game. That's what I think if this was a game just about making movies, I think you'd make one or two movies and forget it, but it is a game about running a movie studio and there had to be that real life in there. Any add-on disks that we do forward will extend both the movie making and the game part.

MN: Quite frankly James, no-one has egos and no-one has tantrums and little hissy-fits in the movie game do they?

JH: Absolutely not.

MN: Quite. You obviously done your research well on that. Nurfbattle, thank you very much for your question. Do you think that movies and games will be the same, as one, in ten years time? Because of this convergence between movies and games, it's been getting closer and closer. You'd have the movie and then the game would follow, sometimes you'd have the game and the movie would follow. 'Tomb Raider' is an obvious example of that. Were you on 'Tomb Raider' as well?

JH: Yeah, 'Tomb Raider 2'

MN: Yeah, see, he's been on everything, So with that case now, are we going to see the movie and it all be one in the next 10 years?

PM: You know I am going to say something, which is going to be contentious for 'The Movie.' I think games can do far more than movies can ever do, and sure enough yeah, the film industry is looking to the games industry for inspiration about films to make. But soon now there are certainly some games we are thinking of working on now, are just impossible to think of as movies. The reason for that is more and more games will be about you and what you're like and what that means to the game and to the story and to the action and to playing out the whole pace of the game. You can't make a movie for individuals because it has to be made for an audience, where a game can be made for an individual because we have the technology to do that. So in ten years time I think there will be some fascinating things going to happen. Sure enough, movies, films look good and continue to look better and better all the time, special effects are getting better, but games are catching up, they really are catching up. Funnily enough, I just came from a meeting, where we were again talking about whether we wanted to have ten thousand or a hundred thousand pores, little pores, on a persons face for a next generation face we are dealing with. This is how close up do you want to get? And the reason we have to have pores is because they have to sweat and they have to look more and more real. So I think you're going to see some very exciting things happening.

JH: That film there 'Final Fantasy', did you ever see that one as well?

PM: Yes I did

JH: That shows you what way it can be pushed.

PM: Well yes, what's interesting about 'Final Fantasy' is that was a games company trying to make a film. I think they made a pretty good job,

JH: Sure,

PM: The animation was pretty amazing. Funnily enough, the quality of that 'Final Fantasy' film has already been surpassed by the games that we're creating now. This is all next generation technology that is coming out now, and that gives us an amazing amount of power and an incredible amount of fear because what I realised again today is, if I move the distance of the eyes just by half a centimetre across the face, someone goes from looking intelligent into looking stupid and that is just a frightening amount of skill that's involved in deciding what your character looks like, what the lighting's like. It's quite amazing.

MN: I'm just wondering, as an editor, do you see yourself working on movies or in the gaming industry in ten years time, because you could be working in both?

JH: Sure, because the games now have almost like a little scene sometimes in between, they do it like a whole story and you come to a scene and you'll complete a scene and at the end it'll do a little round up with the guys, it's almost like a little movie in between and its becoming a bigger and bigger industry and more money's being thrown at each game. They're becoming huge.

PM: You know what is interesting,, it would be fascinating for you to have a look at this. Funny enough, on the games I am working on now, what I'm trying to do now, is get rid of those scenes all together, because what it means is you're playing the game and suddenly you've got to put down your joypad and sit back and watch it. You don't want to do that, you want to carry on and solve it. So how could we edit the game, edit the shot and the pace so that we can tell the story, give the impact of the scene while you're doing something. That actually is down to a skill that is more a visual editing skill than it is a gaming skill.

MN: If we do nothing else on web chats, we like to tie people in together, get them a job. They'll be working together in the future. It started here folks, you saw it here. We're down to the last two minutes, can't believe half an hour goes by that quickly. Lots of people asking about 'Domitri'

PM: Right

MN: Just wanted to let you know that

PM: I'll give you a little clue what that's about. It's a game. The whole ethos of the game is about you, and allowing you, allowing a person to relive part of their life, re-experience part of their life and that is a very scary concept I can tell you. A lot of people are sweating at the moment with the technology we are trying to create to bring it.

MN: It sounds fantastic. Again, you are just wetting the appetite for us. What projects for both of you? What are you up to next James? What's the next big call?

JH: It's Guys next film, which is not too far off what you're doing. It's an animation picture, which is very funny. I've read the first draft of the script and its very funny and then after that, another picture for Guy we might be doing straight after that, but can't say too much about that one.

MN: In the movie industry everything is always under wraps...

JM: Well, everything gets pushed around, I'm sure it's the same with you as well, but it could be starting next week then it gets pushed back.

MN: Well, good luck with all of that. Thank you very much indeed for coming in. Peter, for you next, obviously you're just working on 'The Movies' and expansions to that and so many other things going on as well.

PM: Well, I'm also working on 'Domitri' and I'm working on a console game; a sequel to a console game. Can't say what it is but anyone who knows the stuff I've done could guess.

MN: Listen, that's all from us. Thank you very much indeed for joining us on web chats. Thank you very much indeed to Peter and thank you very much to James for joining us, and all I can say is, happy gaming.

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