The GTA 5 Wildlife Documentary Is Why Rockstar Was Smart To Embrace Fan Films

from the fan-works dept

When Rockstar released its own video editor for Grand Theft Auto 5, the move in and of itself received only mild applause. People have been using video games to make entirely transformative works for some time now. More important was the signal that Rockstar was sending: use our game to make fan films. This is smart for any number of reasons, but allowing fans to use games as they see fit makes those games more valuable to the market, and those transformative works ultimately only serve to advertise the original game in the first place. It's a win for everyone, in other words.

Well, what started in GTA 4 has moved on into GTA 5. One example is a recently released fake documentary about the wildlife in the GTA 5 universe. With the exception of some of the extreme closeups, the whole thing has impressive production values, and the voiceovers and music are spot on for the genre.

The creatures of GTA V all lead secret lives that we often never get to see while playing. They hunt. They eat. They try to survive. 8-BIT BASTARD and Chaney555 tap into all of that with their latest GTA documentary, “Onto The Land.” It’s an impressive 15 minute video that took 6 months to research and develop, something which is pretty obvious when you look at the quality at display.

I think the most striking part of this fan film is just what the technology of a video game allows a third party to create. We've talked for some time about how the barriers for generating all kinds of media are shortening, or becoming non-existent. That includes creative film. This video, which took a mere six months to make and was a labor of love for essentially one individual, ought to serve notice of exactly what kind of impressive work can be done simply operating inside a video game.

Additionally, you have to think that Rockstar is loving this. The company's game gets all kinds of free publicity, the filmmaker gets to create his work inside of the game, and the public gets to enjoy the fun that results. All because a content producer decided to unshackle its content and embrace fan-works.

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Filed Under: copyright, creativity, documentary, fan films, gta
Companies: rockstar