Level 17

Cutscenes, or No One’s Gonna Watch ‘Em Anyway

A CUTSCENE IS an animated or live-action sequence used to advance the story; create spectacle; provide atmosphere, dialogue, and character development; and reveal clues that players would otherwise miss during gameplay. Players often have no control over the game while a cutscene plays.

I find cutscenes to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, they usually look fantastic, allowing your game world and characters to be shown in a way that may not be reproducible in the game engine. On the other hand, however, there is a history of many cutscenes being too long, not necessary to the story, or a downright chore to watch. Many players will skip through cutscenes (if the game gives them the option to do this!) to “get to the game.” To avoid this, you should first ask yourself this very important thing:

CAN THE ACTION BE DONE WITH GAMEPLAY?

Since cutscenes are very expensive to make, it’s best to use them judiciously. I say “cutscenes are best saved for kissing and blowing things up” for these reasons:

You can create more emotion in a cutscene because you have direct control over all of the elements.
Collisions in games just don’t look as good as they do in a pre-rendered movie. Two characters kissing (or holding hands or whatever) just looks a lot less awkward.
It’s often better to take the control away from the player so they can get swept up in the story or blown away by the spectacle.
Explosions look awesome when they are pre-rendered.

A Cut Above

Just as there are many ways to make movies, there are many ways to make cutscenes: full-motion video, animations, flash-animated sequences, prerendered cutscenes, puppet shows, and scripted events.

Full motion video (or FMV) cutscenes were popular when video games were first being published on CD media. Titles like Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (Origin, 1994), Command and Conquer (EA, 1995), and The Horde (Crystal Dynamics, 1994) employed live-action cutscenes featuring Hollywood actors and production values. An outside production company usually produces FMVs because they require all the resources of a motion picture production.
During the mid-1990s, FMVs became so popular that several systems dedicated to playing interactive movies were produced. Early game systems like the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, PlayStation, Philips CD-I, and Sega Mega CD (as well as PCs) specialized in games with extensive or playable FMV sequences, such as Night Trap (Sega, 1992), Sewer Shark (Sony Imagesoft, 1992), Phantasmagoria (Sierra Online, 1995), and Psychic Detective (EA, 1995). Even though DVD media can easily handle the file size of the videos, FMVs have become less popular with game developers these days. They’re usually deemed too expensive to produce for something the game’s audience may not watch.
Animated cutscenes or full-motion animations (FMAs) offer a stylistic alternative to FMVs. A cell-animated or stop-motion-animated cutscene is converted into a video format that the game’s engine can play, and it is then shown during the game’s title and story sequences. Players have no control over the game during these sequences. Due to the involved production, generally long shooting time, and cost, animated cutscenes are scarce in video games. However, there have been many gorgeous examples of animated cutscenes, such as the Neverhood titles (Dreamworks Interactive, 1996), The Curse of Monkey Island (LucasArts, 1997), and the Professor Layton series (Nintendo, 2007).
Flash-animated sequences are created in Adobe Flash, which, due to the use of still images and simple movement, lends the animation a distinctive visual style that often resembles graphic novels. Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate (WB, 2013) and the Sly Cooper series use this method for storytelling.
Pre-rendered cutscenes are created using high-resolution versions of the game’s character models and environments, with cinematic cameras to create dynamic and dramatic choreography, imagery, and storytelling. Players have no control over the game during these sequences. With enough money, time, and manpower, these prerendered cutscenes can look spectacular. Check out any Blizzard title, Final Fantasy series game, or Namco fighting game to see what I mean.¹
In-game cinematics or “puppet shows” use in-game assets such as characters and environments to create cutscenes. They are called puppet shows because the characters in early versions of these cutscenes moved unnaturally, giving an impression of marionettes. Visually, they are only distinguished from gameplay by the use of a cinematic camera. Puppet shows can be noninteractive or allow players limited character and camera movement (such as looking around with the main character’s head) as seen in Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft, 2007) and the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series.
Scripted events are similar to puppet shows where in-game assets are used to create animated sequences, but here players are allowed limited to full interaction with the game during the sequence. Since their inclusion in games such as Half-Life (Valve, 1998), The Operative: No One Lives Forever (Fox Interactive, 2000), and the Medal of Honor series, scripted events have become the preferred method to convey story without upsetting the pace of gameplay. They are quite common in FPS and action games, but if these events are not properly choreographed, players run the risk of missing or not seeing the event. They can also get repetitive if players have to experience them repeatedly due to dying before the event’s objectives can be completed.² Here are a few ways to make sure your players are watching your scripted event:
- Have your events activate only when the player character is actually looking at or facing the scripted event.
- Build your level geometry to “frame the scene” so players get a clear view of the action.
- Move the camera around the environment to give players an idea of its layout and space.
- If you have a mobile camera, be sure to start your event from the player’s POV or position. This is particularly important for cutscenes that use the in-game camera to show events like geometry changing position or when giving hints about puzzle elements or revealing enemies. You should use the camera to always show a clear cause and effect, such as “pull this lever and that door opens.”

The good news is that you can now determine which type of storytelling device is best for your cutscene. The bad news is that you now have to write it.

How to Write a Screenplay in Eight Easy Steps

Because there are so many books on screenwriting, I’m not going to even attempt to go into the detail that they do. If you’re interested in reading an in-depth analysis on screenwriting, I suggest the following books:³

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field (Dell, 1984)
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee (It Books, 1997)
Screenwriting 434: The Industry's Premier Teacher Reveals the Secrets of the Successful Screenplay by Lew Hunter (Perigee Trade, 2004)

Since you are reading this book and not one of those, here is a quick-and-dirty guide to teach you how to write your screenplay like a professional, to be used by storyboard artists, animators, or voice actors:

Step 1—Outline your story. If you don’t know the beginning, middle, and end of your story, you won’t know what the heck you’re writing. But you already learned how to do this back in Level 3, right?
Step 2—Break down your story scene by scene to determine which characters are in each scene and what locations they take place in. This information is going to be important for staging as well as asset-creation purposes. You may not be able to have 10,000 Orcish warriors charging over a hill in a puppet show cutscene. You may want to play around with the order of your cutscenes. Maybe you want to start with a flashback because there is more action in a later scene than in your first scene. For example, in SpongeBob SquarePants: Atlantis SquarePantis (THQ, 2007), we started the game at the end of the story because it was the scene with the most action, and we wanted the game to start with a high-action scene. I find it better to start with a bang to grab the viewers’ attention.
Step 3—Determine which scenes of your story are going to be cutscenes versus being told through gameplay. I prefer to tell as much of the story as possible through gameplay because this is what players will be doing the most—playing the game.
Don’t make players watch something they should doing. It’s always better to have the players do than watch… . Wait a second; that’s a very important thing. Let me try that again:

IT’S ALWAYS BETTER TO HAVE THE PLAYERS DO THAN WATCH

Step 4—Write your scenes and dialogue. Determine what needs to happen and what needs to be said. Try to communicate your scenes with action as much as (if not more than) with words. Write to entertain. It doesn’t hurt to be funny either. What you do need to be is brief. As Shakespeare once said, “brevity is the soul of wit.” Or in other words, keep it short. Don’t bore with a lot of yapping or technobabble.⁴ Try to get your point across in as few words as possible. I used to treat writing dialogue like a game of “Name That Tune.” “George, I can write that dialogue in 12 lines.” “Oh yeah, well, I can write that in eight lines or less.” “Write. That. Dialogue!”
Step 5—Write your script in the official screenplay format. If you are going to be a writing professional (hey, you’re writing a video game, so guess what? You are a writing professional), you’d better learn to do it the way the pros do. Every other entertainment professional uses this format, so there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. Here’s a simple style guide:
SCENE #. INT./EXT. (choose one) — LOCATION — TIME OF DAY
CAMERA ANGLE
Describe the setting, introduce CHARACTERS in ALL CAPS, highlight
any ACTION in ALL CAPS too.
CHARACTER'S NAME
(actor's direction goes in parenthesis)
Dialogue is written here. Keep it brief.

That’s pretty much the basics of screenwriting format! Plenty of screenwriting formatting programs like Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter are available if you want to save time pressing the Tab key on your keyboard.
Step 6—Read your dialogue. Dialogue often sounds great “in your head” when you’ve written it down, but sounds strange or clunky when it’s read aloud. Expect to rewrite (and rewrite and rewrite) your dialogue.
Step 7—Let it simmer for a day or two. Often you will get new ideas or think of better ways to write scenes or snappier dialogue. Have others read it and give you their feedback. Try not to hover too much over them as they do it.
Step 8—Prepare your script for voice actors using a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. “Break out” the characters’ dialogue line by line because this is the way voice actors read and record their dialogue. Having the actors’ lines isolated will make it easier for them and you to get through what they need to read without having to page through a lengthy script. Make sure to retain scene numbers on your spreadsheet. Remember to give each line of dialogue a file name so the sound engineer has something to name each sound file when cutting up the session tracks. This will be the same file your programmer uses to put the track into the game. Here’s an example:

Cold Steele VO Script: Jake Steele dialogue (Actor TBD)

File Name	Dialogue	Notes
Opening_01_01	Those terrorists have hidden from us for too long, Montoya.	Opening cinematic
Opening_01_02	Well, they’re about to get a taste of COLD STEEL.	Place emphasis on “cold steel”
Opening_01_03	Saddle up, amigo. We’re going hunting.
Opening_01_04	Heh. You can say that again.
Opening_01_05	Montoya! Noooooo!	Montoya is killed by terrorist
Cutscene_01_01	Just because you’ve got me trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey doesn’t mean you’ve won, Von Slaughter.
Cutscene_01_02	I wouldn’t give you the map even if I did have it… Ungh!	Jake is slapped by Von Slaughter at end of line
Cutscene_01_03	Go ahead, sucker. Do your worst.	Hurt but not defeated
Jake_Climb_01	Unnnh!	Climbs mountain
Jake_Climb_02	Umphf! Umphf!	Alternative climbing take
Jake_Collect_01	Come to papa.	Collects pick-up or cash
Jake_Collect_02	This will come in useful.	Collects pick-up or cash
Jake_Collect_03	Heh heh.	Collects pick-up or cash
Jake_Health_01	Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.	Drinks health tonic
Jake_Health_02	That was a good one.	Drinks health tonic
Jake_Yell_01	Yaaaaah!!	Jake’s charge move
Jake_Yell_02	Here I come, suckers!	Alt charge move
Jake_Victory_01	Take that, sucker!
Jake_Victory_02	Ha ha! That’s how we did it in the old days!
Jake_Hit_01	Ow!
Jake_Hit_02	Oomph!
Jake_Hit_03	Aarrgh!
Jake_Death_01	Yaaaaaaaah!	Jake falls off cliff
Jake_Death_02	Ung! Ooooh!	Jake is shot and drops to his knees
Jake_Death_03	Not again! Uhhhhh!	Alternative death take
Jake_Death_04	YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!	Burned to death

As you may have noticed from this example, VO (which stands for voice over, btw; and btw stands for by the way, btw) scripts have a lot of “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” and “Oomph!” and “Unngh!” in them. Voice actors read these lines literally, so write this dialogue the way you want it to sound. There’s a big difference between “Arg!” and “Aaaargh!” to voice actors. One’s a pirate, and the other is a death rattle.

If you’re not sure how to spell a grunt, hit reaction, or death cry, I suggest reading comic books. They’re filled with all sorts of onomatopoeic⁵ words like “POW!” “CRASH!” and “AIIEEE!”

Finding Your Voice

Now that you’ve written your script and broken it out, you might find it helpful to record a temp track, like I do. This is a track of moderately talented amateur actors and team members—such as you—reading the lines for the purposes of determining audio file size and length. All you need to record a temp track is your script, a willing actor, a decent microphone, computer software that can record audio, and a quiet place that doesn’t echo to record. Try to do your best to read each line the way you will eventually want it performed by a professional voice actor. However, it’s a bad idea to animate a character’s lip sync to a temp track: the actor’s performance will end up very different than that of the temp actor. You should use temp track audio only for timing and blocking purposes.

Speaking of voice actors, while you could play the part of Jake Steele, international terrorist hunter, you really should hire a professional actor for the final game. I’ve had the privilege of working with dozens of VO actors over the years and, believe me, there is a HUGE difference in the performance you get from an actor versus an amateur. You want the best for your game, right? So hire an actor. (Or two. Or three. Or a dozen.) But before you can hire an actor, you’re going to need to hire a voice director.

Voice directors will help you cast your game’s characters based on the character descriptions you give them. Make sure you’re accurate with what you send and don’t be vague. If necessary, give your voice director the name of an existing actor you imagine would be perfect for the role. Who knows, you may even be able to get that person for the part!⁶ The voice director will book the studio time and help you get the best rate. He or she also will help you schedule your time to get the most recording time with your actors. The voice director will direct the actors during the voice-over sessions and work with the sound technicians to get the best quality results.

As you get ready for the voice-over session, send the script to the voice director. It doesn’t have to be the final draft, but make sure you let the voice director know that you will be bringing changes to the script with you. On the day of the voice session, be sure to bring the following with you:

Extra physical copies of the script.
A highlighter, for calling out lines to the actors in the script during the session.
A ballpoint pen or pencil, to make notes and to keep track of changes to the script. (Trust me, there will be changes.)
Images of the characters the actors are playing. Bring whatever you can to give each actor an idea of what his or her character looks like. In many cases, VO actors will play several parts in your game (the voice actors union allows an actor to portray up to three characters in one game), so even if it’s “drooling alien no. 2,” bring an image to help the actor bring that character to life (and send that image ahead of time to the voice director as well to aid in casting).
A book or handheld game. “Hurry up and wait” is the motto of the entertainment industry. There is always plenty of downtime as actors and sound technicians prepare for the session. Keep out of their way, but don’t wander off too far.
Provide beverages and snacks. Voice sessions can last all day if not all week. According to the voice actor’s union, you need to provide a meal for your talent if your session lasts a whole day. Even though all you’re doing is sitting and listening to actors all day, it can still be exhausting!

If you aren’t the game writer/designer, make sure your writer/designer is on hand when it’s time for the voice-over recording session too. Very often, there will need to be script rewrites, and the actors and voice director don’t always know the context of the line. You may need something very specific for your game: don’t leave it up to someone else. Not that there’s any problem with improvisation—giving actors free rein to create great additions and alternate takes on your script will give you plenty of material to work with, and the actors enjoy doing it too—and if they enjoy working with you, they will want to work with you again in the future.

And finally, have fun! Remember, you are getting paid to sit in a room listening to actors say lines that you have written! It doesn’t get much better than that!