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The '10 Cloverfield Lane' Director Has Big Video Game Dreams For Himself

Sometimes we don't imagine that video games are a part of the lives of our favorite movie directors.

By Matthew BaileyPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Sometimes we don't imagine that video games are a part of the lives of our favorite movie directors. Considering the poor transition of video games to film, it makes sense that perhaps these directors truly just aren't in tune with the essence of video games at all.

Yet, recently Dan Trachtenberg has given us all hope that maybe, just maybe, we'd be delivered a video game film that actually does the game justice. Dan is most recently known for his addition to the Cloverfield cinematic universe, with his stunningly, terrifying 10 Cloverfield Lane. And in a recent interview with Glixel, he had several interesting things to say about his dreams for the future of movies as they expand into video games and vice versa.

So will the video game curse be broken?

In the interview Dan quoted an article on Film School Rejects, and he believes that perhaps video games are the next evolution for movies? Rather than video games needing to be simplified to make their cinematic debut, he sees that video games are then next layer of the cinematic experience.

Now that isn't to say that video games will always be cursed as they transition to major motion picture, Dan thinks that it can still happen and that's one of the main reasons why he created the Portal short film that gained him notoriety in both the gaming and film worlds.

Dan has talked with a few people about his direction in the cinematic world, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's working on any video game based films. He has several other scripts that he's working on including a science fiction heist film, a piece on Harry Houdini, and a comic book adaptation. All of that is exciting to him but he hopes to step into the role of game director.

"I have a feeling I'll have to make a few more movies before I ever get a shot at making a game."

What kind of game does he want to direct?

Dan is just like us, he grew up playing video games, and it was because of video games that his desire to create movies was inspired. He saw that the video games had fantastic premises and were fun but never seemed to live up to the promise of the premise. As games have evolved from the days of Atari and Intellivision to Sony and Microsoft, so have the cinematic experiences within the video games.

Even during the time that he was directing 10 Cloverfield Lane, he made sure to always bring his games with him, and found himself playing each night as a way to calibrate and rest for the next day. Dan even admitted to pulling out his PC while working on Black Mirror and he would jump into World of Warcraft since the Legion expansion had just been released.

'10 Cloverfield Lane' [Credit: Bad Robot Productions]

He'd love to be a part of directing a video game, and the number one item on his wishlist is to develop a Virtual Reality experience.

Dan sees VR as the next step for movie directors because it takes the cinematic experience and expands it, requiring more attention to sound design and visual storytelling to direct the players.

"Virtual reality is this brand new arena that really takes it up a notch in terms of using all of your senses, and all of the cinematic techniques or game making techniques, using sound design and score and visual storytelling to direct you. I would love to crack that nut at some point soon."

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About the Creator

Matthew Bailey

Husband. Father. Gamer. Cinema Lover. Mix it all together, and there I am. I love all things pop-culture and coffee; but coffee is the best.

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