The Movies (game)

[tonz0phun]

Just sitting at work, being bored, and I just started thinking I should reinstall my copy of the Movies just for fun. Anyone else tried it?

I'm not a big fan of starting a new studio from scratch but the sandbox mode is pretty fun when you start with enough money/sets to really mess around with the game.

Just thought I ask, and hey! I just wasted about 3 minutes! God, midnight can't come fast enough. :(

[darkhelmetmovies]

I was addicted to that game for about 4 days straight, I didn't leave the house, I didn't go on the internet, I didn't talk to anyone, just that game. Now, I play it casually. But yeah, I love that game.

[tonz0phun]

Yea, I'm going to reinstall it tonight when I get home from work! I can't stop thinking about it. :loco:

[SyxxGage]

What is this game of which you speak?

[tonz0phun]

The Movies is a game where you create a Hollywood movie studio. You start in the early days of film with silent movies and work your way to big budget blockbusters! It's in the same vein as the Tycoon series but you can create your own movies! It's like Machinima: The Game!

http://www.lionhead.com/themovies/

[SyxxGage]

Oh. I dont think I could play that. I cant seem to get into those micro management games.

[tonz0phun]

The trick is to play in sandbox mode where all the cool stuff is unlocked and just spend time making your movie.

[Ladri.]

I just played for the first time in like 2 years and I didn't even realize 2 and a half hours had gone by. That's probably bad but it's such a fun game. Has anyone else played it?

[next-tarantino]

Dude, "The Movies" is awesome. An old roommate and I stayed up all night making a 5-6 minute short (about 30-ish shots/scenes), and it was hilarious.

I'm going to have to go re-install that one now, lol.

[bridboyross]

yer I love that game, I lost so many hours playing it, I heard it didnt sell too well and hit lionhead quite hard financially, it was great though.

[tonz0phun]

Me = win

http://forum.indymogul.com/showthread.php?t=285&highlight=movies+game

[sonnyfromda02]

I was waiting for it to come out on 360, but it was canceled. Maybe I'll pick it up for PC.

[felix78]

I've played it, but it's so booring in the beginning. When it's around the 30s or something.

[CreepyClownpro]

:(:eek::(IT TOOK OVER MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek::(:eek:



I Modded it, i was on all the forums and i had all the hacks and cheats.

My grades were slipping, i would lock myself in my room for hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



God it was bad ass game.

I don't recommended anyone playing it if they value thier social life.

[Ladri.]

:(:eek::(IT TOOK OVER MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek::(:eek:



I Modded it, i was on all the forums and i had all the hacks and cheats.

My grades were slipping, i would lock myself in my room for hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



God it was bad ass game.

I don't recommended anyone playing it if they value thier social life.

Social life is for losers! I'm going to go play it now.

(social life is not in fact for losers. I value mine but I like that game too much.)

[sanftner2003]

I bought this last month or so, but everytime I try to install it, it has some kind of error. (I cant remember what it was exactly).

But has anyone else here been able to install it on Vista?

[BoonMcNougat]

I bought this last month or so, but everytime I try to install it, it has some kind of error. (I cant remember what it was exactly).

But has anyone else here been able to install it on Vista?

Me too, on this computer (Vista) and on my XP computer. I just kept repeating the install process, and it worked, for both computers. I was adament to play this game, and boy lordy did I have fun spending hours to produce 3-minute shorts. It was so fun, I should get the expansion.

[sanftner2003]

So it didnt work at first?

I think I gave up after the 3rd try.

Mabey I'll try it again when i find where that damn first disc went to.

[Vaughn Whynot]

played it and beat it
can't wait till movies 2
release date is unknown tho
so it's probably a rumor

[EnipProductions]

With Stunts & Effects I managed to make what is still considerded one of the best Films to date.

I then left the awesome community. :D Leave on a high note :)

[CB2001]

I've got it. It's one of the few games I have that I plan on using for storyboarding (for some shots that I can't pull off with "The Sims 2") and even made a mock-trailer for one of my stories from my "Reality 423" storyset, Karma Agent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWsaTg07xUY).

[Pure Milk Genius Productions]

I had fun with it, but I got annoyed with the inflexibility you have with shot choices.

[Indymoguler]

whats it about???

[Vaughn Whynot]

whats it about???
making movies
you run a crappy movie studio
then make movies to get richer
the timeline goes threw the 50s to the 90s
so you start off with b&w silent movies to special effects in the 90s

[LoafDaConvict]

This game ROCKS!!I bought it for $4.00 at a big lots!!

[DOA Productions]

Yeah I played it for a while but I couldnt really get into it. I prefer the Age of Mythology kind of game.

[hayden]

Ah, the movies. I loved that game. I would also just screw around in sandbox. I didn't really like managing the studio, I just liked making the movie.

[insane12]

I loved playing that game. I use to abuse all the actor characters... i would take this one guy, put the lizard body paint on him make him wear nothing but a pair of boxer get him drunk and have the press take pictures of him. Then i whould lower the mony the actor gets and make every one hate him.

[Drummerdude96]

That's an okay game. It's cool in sandbox mode, but if you really want to get everything you have to play through story mode and unlock all the rewards. I did, and it's like 10X better then it was before.

[DOA Productions]

Or if you're lazy like me you could do this http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/movies/hints.html

[whereintheworld]

In this game you can make random movies, out of the sets and actor actions the game gives you. One of the sets is a green screen, So you would be able to in theory, Composite the Actors from the game into your movie if you need extras. Or you can just use the game itself, and mods to make your movie like i did here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9ab2zAT0w

[EndlessPlanet]

It's so much fun to worth with especially since you have to be creative to work with what little you have.

My videos I've made with "The Movies"

http://vimeo.com/1995462
http://vimeo.com/1917107 <---my favorite
http://vimeo.com/1916387

[insane12]

I find it fun to get an actor drunk as hell then put them in a pair of boxers and body paint that makes them look like a lizard and release him in the studio.

[NuclearRamen]

I always wanted to play that game. You guys are a pretty convincing group. I think I'll go search for it.

[theSarge00]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2395/2369955887_e372b3d20d_b.jpg

As a much more fluid environment for previs, may I suggest Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com) ?

Sure, the scuttlebutt is that it's a haven for pervs. That it's for those people who lose touch with reality and get waaaayy too into their characters. Lost in the game.

The deal is: it's not a game. You are at this moment engaged in virtual communication, reading words that are symbols for thoughts put forward by me, to you. You use a celphone? That's virtual communication (in that you are not actually in the presence of the person you are communicating with). You email, you're engaged in virtual communication. You write a pen and paper letter, you're utilizing virtual communication. This thing we all share an interest in, film, is a form of virtual communication. ALL of these modes of communication CAN be used for sex. So too SL. It's got chat features. It's got built in voice communication. It features a visual component. All of these CAN be used for sex. They can all also be used for any number of other things.

The basic misconception about SL is that it's a game. It's not: it's an environment. A SHARED environment, meaning that people from around the world can log in and maneuver their "avatars" into proximity to each other. The biggest thing that separates this from say WoW is that there's no game involved.

SL provides you with a basic avatar, an empty world, and tools. The rest is up to you.

A basic rundown of the things you can do:
-an ability to shape your basic human avatar form on a wide variety of levels: from body shape, to location, color, and proportion of features.

-an ability to build. You have a toolbox with basic "primitive" forms: cube, sphere, torus, cylinder, etc. You have the ability to stretch, twist and even hollow and perform certain cuts to them. You can combine them by grouping, allowing you to build pretty much anything: from the statue of liberty, to a prosthetic..ahem..enhancement. Commonly used to "sculpt" hairdoos in ways the basic model hair your avatar comes with cannot. They're used to build specialized clothing, cars, houses, weapons, even whole bodies that can be attached to various parts of your avatar's body and worn like a costume.

- ability to import textures. Anything you can paint or swipe off the web can be imported into SL, allowing you to texture the things you build any way you like. Using templates, you can paint up a complete surface for your avatar's body. Using clothing templates, you can paint up new textures for the basic clothing that is provided by the client.

- ability to stream video and audio from outside sources. You can set up a radio that you can give controls to to access any streaming audio, your own or anything available on the web that you have set up as presets. You can set up a screen object that can access any stream available on the web, and view it like a tv screen inWorld (there have been a number of flaps over copyrighted video being made available for rent inWorld).

- ability to import textures. Any image you can make or grab, you can import directly into the world, to be applied directly to objects you've created.

- ability to import animations and poses that your avatar can perform. It uses .bvh files (essentialy mocap data) taken from motion capture suits as well as produced by programs like Poser).

- ability to utilize a scripting language to provide interactivity. You build a car, you can script it to work like a car. you build a door, you can touch that door inWorld, and it will open/close, complete with a call for sound effects (which you can also import). You build a gun, it can fire projectiles that can blow an opponent across the zone, up to causing damage (the ability to allow damage to happen to avatars is a toggle by the owner of the region you're in). The most sophisticated example of scripting is a line of sexual "attachments" that not only react to being touched, but can interact with other attachments and furniture (kind of like those Simpson's toys that would say different lines depending on whether you had them in the Moe's tavern playset vs the Simpson's house set.

[theSarge00]

Applications: So given all that, look at the picture in the pervious post: I built the clothing, the skins, the background set (which is fully 3d), the poses. The only post (Photoshopping) I did was combining one image of the two people walking their separate ways, with a second shot of the same people engaged in an embrace, and some extra rain sweetening (I actually shot it with a translucent plane with rain painted on it set up between the camera and the scene). The pov of the camera is completely adjustable (you can override the the camera's natural tendency to rotate around your figure). Combined with a video capture tool like fraps, you could shoot actual footage of people's avatars interacting. Compile enough shots, shot at different angleswith the actor's "acting" using animations, you could completely create an animatic of what you want to eventually shoot with real actors. Lighting is fully adjustable, including objects that have light properties that you could adjust color and intenisty on.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/1513326460_885fdd8f1c.jpg
Sitting at a table ina field - I didn't build any of this except my avatar's clothes...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/1461708374_f8dbd74eeb.jpg
Same here...i did all the stuff on the figure..the background is a "sim" - an area of the grid - where folks had built a wild west town.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/424228951_85f1c44dea_o.jpg
Shot of Gadget one evening in the town of Nakama.

Everything you see in these pix was built by residents of the grid. So you can imagine, there are wildernesses, modern cities, roman cities, steampunk cities whose skies are filled with airships and smokestacks - basically anything anyone wants to build, they can. You could walk the streets of Camelot and chat with other people who look like knights in armor. You could visit a city based on the neon lit wet streets of "Blade Runner" and buy a Spinner to fly about in. And yes, go to a sylvan glade and watch a humanoid panda getting it on with an anthropomorphic dragon, copulating with abandon, or Gorean cities and watch tarnsmen with their pack of slavegirls in tow.

You could attend a "live" concert by a rw musician who is podcasting basically inWorld (the late Kurt Vonnegut did a reading inWorld sponsored by NPR), or visit a Gap store that allows you to virtually try on clothes that gets you coupon that you can use to buy stuff at a real Gap store. There's a theatre company that puts on Shakespear plays. A number of motion pictures have done inWorld experiences, up to and including a live premeire for XMen at Cannes, with a streaming report specifically for people at the party from someone AT Cannes. There are plenty of educational institutions who have presenences there, who hold conferences that attendees don't even have to leave home to attend. I took a tour of the caves of Lascaux and walked among the neolithic cave paintings once.

All of this, springing from the imaginations of ordinary people like you or me. All you are provided is your basic avatar, sky, land, and the rest is up to you. So if you want a fully customizable place to arrange your next film ahead of time, give it a try. Basic access is free - land ownership (think of it as webspace) where you can build what you want and have it remain, costs money, but it's fairly cheap.

Give it a thought, or not.

[Razback]

Sarge you try to promote second life...its possible shooting any movies...