You Are the One - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 8

passage from additive to expressive form, meaning that in the beginning of the
incunabula stage we use the new medium as a simple extension of existing forms.
As we become more familiar with its possibilities we fi nd new forms that allow us
to express ourselves in ways that previous media did not allow. To understand this
is to understand why computer games are so interesting to study right now. Hope-
fully, it also leads the reader to understand why this topic has an edge to it and why
it sometimes seems to pose more questions than it answers.
Before we begin the topic proper let's take a closer look at a theory and a model
and the practical relationship between them. Let's look at something really straight-
forward: storyboards. We are going to look at the theory of storyboards because I
imagine just about everyone who has anything to do with games design has come
across, created, or worked with or from storyboards at some time or other. Story-
boards are easy to understand—they give you the outline of a story—but require
good drafting skills to make well. They are a way of communicating the main points
in a story in a cheap and easy way. They can be easily changed and updated and
don't require any expensive or time-consuming technology. They also have nothing
to do with theories and models, right?
Storyboards work because they enable us to visualize a very complex entity
such as an entire feature fi lm before anyone has even decided to make it, before it
even exists. Yet from a good storyboard we can get a pretty good idea of what the
fi lm might be like to watch. Storyboards are an abstraction, a summary; a representa-
tion of structure, characters, events, moods, camera angles, lighting and, no doubt,
much more; all this in a few little hand-drawn pictures. Yet feature fi lms are photo-
graphed at 24 frames a second, rely heavily on sound and music and are highly
dynamic; they change over time. Sound and music only work because they change
over time. Visually, fi lms are also highly dynamic: the characters move; the camera
moves; the focus changes; cars, trains, clouds all move; the lighting changes; the
fi lm jumps from one scene to another; and so on. Yet storyboards still work. Why?
Storyboards provide a useful model of what a feature fi lm is all about. Underly-
ing this model is a theory concerning the nature of feature fi lms. What might this
theory be and what is the real relationship between a storyboard and the actual fi lm
it models?
In Figure 1.2 you can see an excerpt from the storyboard for “Timmy's Lessons
in Nature” by Mark Simon. Without knowing the story you'll quickly see that you
should read the storyboard in rows: top row fi rst, left to right; second row next, left
to right; and so on. You'll also quickly get the basic story. Timmy, the main character,
is swinging through the trees of a great forest using a large snake as a rope. The
snake isn't too happy about this and bites Timmy's head who then can't see where
he's going. All this is being watched with great interest by a wily predator. Eventu-
ally the snake can no longer support the both the weight of Timmy and itself and
crashes to the ground and is pounced on by the predator; Timmy escapes and his
adventure continues.
We “read” this storyboard almost as if we are actually watching the fi nished
cartoon. And yet all we have is a series of outline pencil drawings. The storyboard
is a model of the cartoon and could of course be used to refi ne it and as a design