How It's Done: Rockstar Releases Video Production Editor For GTA So Fans Can Make Films

from the bizzaro-nintendo dept

Peruse the history of fan-film posts we've done in the past and you'll be met with depressing results. Too often the makers of movies and video games prefer a restrictive approach to fans using any form of their content. The approach tends to be of the blanket variety, where a default to protectionism often ties up fan-work that is either usefully creative in and of itself, or else beneficial to the original content producers if only it would be allowed to breathe. Nintendo has become famous for this kind of restrictive practice in YouTube recently, but it is hardly alone.

Rockstar, as it has so often before, breaks the mold on this kind of thing. Back when Grand Theft Auto 4 was the latest iteration in the GTA series, some enterprising fans had used video editing equipment, along with the game itself, to create their own brand of fan-film, using game footage as the vehicle for an admittedly simple but impressive story line. The whole thing was 2 hours long and has been viewed on YouTube over half a million times. Rockstar, for its part, not only didn't take the video down, but it went so far as to provide its own video editing software for fans in the latest PC version of the series, Grand Theft Auto 5.

When Grand Theft Auto V launches tomorrow, it will come complete with a video editing suite that will allow you to make movies from Story Mode and GTA Online footage you capture. The software, the Rockstar Editor, lets you do a number of things [like] record and edit footage and share them with the community. The editor features special camera modes, filters, depth of field and audio customization options, and a Director Mode feature that allows you to create movie-making sequences from a cast of characters from Story Mode.

This, quite simply, is how it's done. Rockstar/GTA fans expressed an interest organically in something they wanted to do with Rockstar's product, an emergent use that Rockstar may never have even considered, and, rather than getting butthurt over the use of the content and sending out the threat-letters, the company enabled its fans' behavior instead.

And why wouldn't they? After all, far from harm, it would be an absolute boon to Rockstar to see YouTube pages filled with fan-creations in the form of short or monstrously-long creative works, all done within GTA itself. It's just one more way to have fun within the game, one more way to be expressive with fellow fans of the game, and one more way for the GTA name to be etched into gaming history. This is pure CwF+RtB calculus at its finest.

Well done, Rockstar.

Filed Under: fan films, fans, grand theft auto, gta
Companies: rockstar

Car Thief Tries To Blame GTA For His Actions

from the nope dept

One thing I have never considered when writing up all the different examples of major media jumping into the blame-video-games pool with both feet is that there are actually a great many people in this world that enjoy watching the news and don't think it's anything more than a dolled-up theater of false controversy. But, unfortunately, such people exist. Apparently, they even exist in American colleges, because here's a stupid tale of one Auburn lacrosse player who stole a truck and then tried to blame his own actions on Grand Theft Auto. Must have been a cable news fan, given that imitation is the best sort of flattery and all that.

Around 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning, according to Baton Rouge police, Burgess hopped in the open cab of an idling truck outside a bar, not realizing or not caring that there was a woman in the passenger's seat. He tried to speed off with the woman along for the ride, but ended up ramming into nine different parked cars before the woman was able to jump to safety.

During questioning Burgess allegedly told an officer that he “wanted to see what it was really like to play the video game Grand Theft Auto.”

You just know the news coverage of this incident attempted to create the first recursive loop based solely on stupidity, running his "excuse" all over their broadcasts. Unfortunately, Burgess is full of crap. See, I've played enough GTA to know that he certainly did not want to see what the game was like if played in real life. Otherwise, he'd be admitting he wanted to experience this. But, no, Burgess didn't attempt to experience any of those parts of the game in real life, did he? That's because he just wanted to steal a truck from out front a bar, because lacrosse just ain't exciting enough. He can attempt to pawn his stupidity off on a video game all he wants, but he'll still be charged with hit and run, theft, and kidnapping all the same. Meanwhile, millions of fans of GTA will go on playing the game without behaving like an idiot.

Filed Under: blame, gta, stealing cars

Feature Film Made In GTA IV

from the film-world-is-changing dept

Nearly a decade ago, we talked about how the concept of machinima was becoming more mainstream, and plenty has happened since then. People have made all sorts of cool stuff within video games. Slashdot points us to a short blog post by someone pointing out how it's becoming cheaper than ever to make movies these days, and points out a few great examples. The first one is a feature-length film made entirely in GTA IV. Stupidly, we can't embed it here, because apparently there's a Universal Music song in there, and Universal is requiring that the video only be shown on YouTube, so that it can monetize it. It seems pretty ridiculous that Universal would get the only money from YouTube on a 90-minute film.

Separately, that original blog post has a short film made for $300 that has pretty damn impressive special effects for that little money: Of course, we've seen cheap movies made with great special effects before, but every year the quality gets better and better and better. Remember a similar story from a little over a year ago? We're going to be seeing more and more and more like this. We've talked a lot lately, wondering when the first feature film will be made with a smartphone, but it's not just the camera equipment. What's fascinating is that so many aspects of filmmaking are becoming cheaper and reaching a much larger community of people. Yes, this will mean plenty of "crappy" movies are made, but it also opens up the possibility that a fantastically great movie can come from totally unexpected places, with incredibly low budgets. Those who don't realize just how disruptive this can be aren't paying close enough attention.

Filed Under: gta, machinima, movies