Future of entertainment
SepT 13, 2005
| Future of entertainment |
 John Gaeta
The "Matrix" effects maestro fuels hybrid entertainment.
Best known as the visual effects supervisor who brought "bullet time" to movies in 1999's "The Matrix," for which he won an Academy Award, John Gaeta also oversaw effects on the two "Matrix" sequels in 2003. While working with the Wachowski brothers, he was exposed to a wide range of media, including Internet programming and video games. Gaeta took time out recently to speak with The Hollywood Reporter's Paula Parisi about his vision of a new form of "hybrid entertainment." The Hollywood Reporter: You are associated with big feature films. What appeals to you about video games? John Gaeta: I love movies, and there will always be a place for that type of linear entertainment experience, (but) the thing about games is that once you're deeply into playing them -- for 10, 20, 30 minutes -- with certain types of games, a certain trancelike state occurs. The medium has got an incredible amount of unlocked power, but it's just in its infancy -- it's like the beginning of movies back in the '30s. It's an artistic medium that doesn't only have to hinge on story but also on immersion and interactivity. THR: How will the merger play out? Gaeta: A really simple way of saying it is to merge the great animation and digital-effects work being done for movies with the equivalent on the interactive side -- I'm calling it "hybrid entertainment." It's starting already, with real-time graphics engines being applied to effects and animation for features. So it's basically Wild West time: It's time to figure out how to actually channel the potential of high-fidelity real-time technology into content of all sorts. THR: What's the next step? Gaeta: To me, the next "big bang" of content type is the real-time animated movie, and I believe you will see this in four years or maybe earlier. The reason is because with game engines, we can potentially achieve the fidelity of some feature effects: (Epic Games') Unreal 3 engine is producing some of the most photorealistic real-time results that I've seen. There is a great deal of potential here to be applied to passive content like movies, but this is also a turning point for the interactive industry because these engines are user-friendly for the people making the games. As with feature visual effects, when the tools became intuitive and applying a function became a matter of selecting it, as opposed to having to write a program yourself, the artists were empowered. That's about to start happening in the game industry, too, and that's going to push things a lot further. THR: How do you see the two media fitting together? Gaeta: By using real-time game engines to create an animated movie, you're building the material in a fashion that will allow it to be rendered on the fly for the viewer -- which makes it interactive -- as opposed to something that has to be rendered in advance, as is typically done with films. At (the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo), Sony was demo-ing the (PlayStation 3) with high-definition, projecting 4K HD content that was being rendered on the fly by the PS3 engine -- and it was 4K widescreen, which is pretty amazing. So you can have the kick-ass display at home, with high-def widescreen, connected to your game platforms. The Xbox 360 has similar potential. Five years out, I think there's going to be a sizable installed base for this stuff and people with a terabyte of storage in their homes. THR: What types of content will be created for that environment? Gaeta: You could say: "Here's a brilliant script that I've had crafted. I want to make this movie so it can be broken into 10 pieces, and you put 10 game levels between (each), but I'm also going to release the 10 pieces together. A distributor can then send it out theatrically or on DVDs or game consoles or PCs. As a viewer, you can watch it like any other movie, in a linear fashion -- but because it was built with real-time rendering, there's the potential of taking the presets off the camera, allowing you to view as you choose. As the creator, you'd have the ability to wrap the scenes with expository information so the viewer can explore. There is the possibility of creating a seamless portal between the movie and the interactive experience; it's a sort-of hybrid or "supermedia," which can also encompass theme parks and television. THR: Which companies are best-positioned to do that right now? Gaeta: Really, anyone doing high-end effects or games. But I think you also look to Japan, South Korea, Canada, Europe and India -- many new companies will hit us from left field. I recently saw a demo from a Korean company called Webzen that looked as good as any animated movie I've seen produced here -- and they were doing it in real time! That was a shocker ... and a wake-up call.  Back to index |
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