Hasta La Motion!

I wanted to share the GOW3 title sequence and interview that I did with Karin Fong, designer/director at the acclaimed Imaginary Forces who designed the main title sequence and the in-game flashback cinematics for God of War III.

Watch it here:
http://watchthetitles.com/articles/00176-God_Of_War_III

Here’s an exerpt of the interview:

Are you a gamer?
Karin Fong: “No, so I had to learn a lot about them! Fortunately many people on my team are gamers and also fans of the God of War series.

Why do you think you were approached to do the title sequence and cinematic flashbacks for this game title? Couldn’t Sony’s Santa Monica Studio who developed the game design the sequence too?
“Stig Asmussen, the game director, wanted sequences that would visually stand out from the gameplay. The cinematics replay events from the past, so it makes sense to have a different lens on these segments, and not have them confused with the present story. Stig particularly liked a painterly, handmade style, and referenced the end titles we created for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, where the language of Chinese brush painting was used to recount the film’s story.

“Because the player is flashing back to an interpretive view of reality, he wanted us to play with the kinds of transitions we often use in our filmic work. With a stylized point of view, we could make surprising camera moves and scale changes to take us from event to event. For instance, at one moment a silhouette could be a face, the next, a landscape. We could take advantage of a non-literal time and space in a way that you can’t during he course of play. In that way, the flashbacks could differentiate and elevate these memories into scenes that were more mythic than the “normal” play.

How did you prepare for this project?
“I began by reading the script… Until then I didn’t realize games had such long scripts! But of course they do—there’s a lot of story to plot out—hours’ worth. I had to understand the key moments Stig was asking us to depict—what they meant to the whole mythology, why certain scenes would resonate with the player.

“And of course I had to dive into the previous two games, and with that I had a lot of help from all the people on our team who were already fans. I began to call Theo Daley, one of the lead designer/animators, our resident professor—I would rely on him to make sure I understood the history of the game and he was key in figuring out what liberties we could take with our “retelling” of these events.

“Looking at concept art also helped.

“Then, as with any project, it’s about diving into the material that makes the story and its atmosphere unique. In this case, the characters and plotlines are loosely based on Greek mythology. Arisu, one of our lead designers, and I looked at a lot of Greek art to see how the Greeks depicted their gods and heroes. This influenced the stylization of key props and events.”

Watch it here:
http://watchthetitles.com/articles/00176-God_Of_War_III